Frontline AIDS launches Innovation Hub

What is innovation and why does it matter? 

Innovation is at the heart of how the Frontline AIDS partnership is working towards ending AIDS by 2030. We are continually exploring, adapting and evolving the way we work to break down the multiple and often intersecting barriers experienced by marginalised people who are living with, or who are at risk of acquiring HIV.  

By focusing on innovation, we can build a stronger and bolder HIV response. It requires the courage to try something new, to do things differently and to persevere in order to pursue what really works. That is why we built the Innovation Hub, so that partners, civil society organisations, governments and donors can share learnings and to profile pioneering projects happening in the HIV space today. 

What is the Innovation Hub? 

The Frontline AIDS Innovation Hub is an online bank of some of the most exciting and innovative practices from across the Frontline AIDS partnership.  Yolaan Andrews from NACOSA, our partner in South Africa, says:

The Innovation Hub is exciting because it really showcases the work that’s happening across the globe. You have this network of partners who are identifying the challenges and are responding to them – and then communicating their responses to others, so the learning continues. Yolaan Andrews, Key Populations Programme Manager, NACOSA

Innovation can take the form of a new action, or it can be a new way of scaling up an existing intervention, making it more effective or adapting it to new contexts, in new combinations or for different populations. The Hub allows the user to filter by location, theme, population group and innovation stage, with the aim of improving our collective understanding of ground-breaking projects from different continents – from inception through to widespread roll-out. This knowledge management tool also allows organisations to identify key opportunities for collaboration, with the shared goal of ending AIDS for everyone, everywhere. 

Innovation can be incremental and evolutionary or disruptive and revolutionary. It can arise from making small changes to existing systems or building whole new ways of working. We cannot anticipate if the solution will be technical, political, social, or operational before fully understanding the lived experience of the problem, and therefore innovation is very rarely a lightbulb moment, but rather a structured process of engaging those we hope to benefit at all stages. Innovation roadmap

The Innovation Hub was launched on 25 November 2022 at a hybrid event co-hosted with LVCT Health in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Click here to explore our Innovation Hub. For more information on any of the featured projects, please contact innovation@frontlineaids.org