Our PoliciesClick the options below to view:
CAP AIDS Environmental Policy Statement
CAP AIDS Policy on Gender & HIV/AIDS
CAP AIDS Environmental Policy Statement
Background:
It is widely recognized that environmental issues and poverty are interrelated. Impoverished communities and households are often driven to use the environment in unsustainable and destructive ways when they have no alternatives for survival. By the same token, environmental degradation, whether it be pollution, soil erosion, loss of genetic diversity, or contamination, cause disproportionate harm to the poor, and often cause a deepening of poverty. Environmental issues are of particular importance to disadvantaged groups (women, people living in rural areas) who depend on their natural environments for their livelihoods. Successful development initiatives therefore take social, environmental, and financial sustainability issues into consideration and endeavor.
It was for this reason that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was passed into law in 1992 with the goal of “anticipating and preventing the degradation of environmental quality and at the same time ensuring that economic development is compatible with the high value Canadians place on environmental quality.” The Act requires that environmental assessments be performed on all projects supported by Canadian funds that involve a “physical work”.
HIV/AIDS and poverty are also interrelated. HIV/AIDS prevention programs cannot be successful without addressing poverty, and poverty will only deepen if something isn’t done to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. Therefore, environmental degradation may be caused by HIV-caused poverty, and HIV may be accelerated by environmental degradation that deepens poverty.
As such, CAP AIDS is committed to working to ensure that projects implemented by CAP AIDS are environmentally sustainable. Damage to the environment would only serve to fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
By recognizing the importance a healthy environment plays in poverty reduction and therefore in the fight against HIV/AIDS we will have greater success in reducing, surviving and overcoming the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Policy:
CAP AIDS will communicate its commitment to environmental, social, and financial sustainability to its partners in Africa, and ask that they consider these issues in their project plans and strategies.
CAP AIDS will screen all proposed projects based on a triple bottom line approach incorporating project-specific indicators in the areas of cost-effectiveness as well as social and environmental sustainability. Where minor negative environmental effects may be anticipated by a particular project activity, CAP AIDS will support partners in identifying and implementing measures that mitigate these effects. Project activities that are expected to cause significant harm to the natural or social environment will not be supported.
CAP AIDS will not support projects involving a physical work that would necessitate an environmental assessment. This policy will be reviewed and modified by the Board of Directors from time to time.
CAP AIDS Policy on Gender & HIV/AIDS
Preamble:
Understanding gender relations is critical to being effective in the fight to resist, survive, and overcome HIV/AIDS. The spread of AIDS in Africa is related to sexual behavior. Because of this, it is intimately connected to power relationships between men and women. From the moment they are born, males and females are treated and regarded and judged differently due to their sex, particularly with respect to sexuality. In Africa, women generally have less control over with whom, when, and under what conditions they have sex, particularly when they are young adults. They are more likely to be economically dependent on male partners. Female biology also puts them at greater risk of infection. For the above reasons, females are more vulnerable to HIV infection. Further, due to women’s traditional role as principal caregiver, they are often the ones who suffer the greatest burdens in taking on the responsibilities for those who are living and dying with the disease and making arrangements for surviving children.
CAP AIDS is committed to promoting gender equality as an integral part of its efforts to help African organizations on the front lines in the fight to resist, survive, and overcome AIDS.
CAP AIDS defines ‘gender equality’ as the equal valuing by society of both the similarities and differences between women and men, and the varying roles that they play.
Policy:
CAP AIDS recognizes that any effort made to stop the spread of AIDS must include gender awareness and the promotion of gender equality. Striving for equality means:
- addressing the practical needs of women and men related to HIV/AIDS prevention, care, treatment and support;
- advancing the strategic need for women to participate actively in identifying and defining problems, developing solutions, making decisions, and benefiting at least equally from the positive outcomes of projects, and;
- encouraging shared responsibility between men and women for preventing, controlling and responding to the impact of HIV/AIDS.
CAP AIDS requires commitment and participation of all of its staff,
board members and volunteers in supporting the promotion of gender
equality in its work. CAP AIDS’ efforts to promote gender equality will
include:
- Identifying and selecting partner organizations with a shared commitment to the promotion of gender equality
- The promotion of equal, though sometimes separate, participation in decision-making and priority-setting.
- Analyzing and understanding differences in gender roles, access to resources and sexual health needs within the communities we support with resources.
- Ensuring that positive outcomes of projects and activities are experienced by women to a degree commensurate with the share of the burden of AIDS that falls upon them
- Encouraging women and men to work together as equal partners at all levels of the organization, taking shared responsibility for addressing the AIDS pandemic and all its manifestations.
In order to sustain a high level of awareness and good practice with respect to this policy, CAP AIDS will periodically measure, monitor and evaluate the progress of our work in promoting gender awareness and equality.
This policy has been set by the Board of Directors, will be followed by all staff and volunteers, and will be reviewed
