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Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance
What we do
The Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA) is a unit within the HIV/AIDS, STIs and TB (HAST) research programme. SAHARA is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation on South Africa, the SADC region and sub-Saharan Africa.
SAHARA is a vehicle for facilitating the sharing of research expertise and knowledge, and for conducting multi-site, multi-country research projects that are exploratory, cross-sectional, comparative or intervention-based. It has as its explicit aim the generation of new social science evidence for the prevention, care and mitigation of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on individuals, families and communities.
Scope of work
SAHARA aims to:
contribute to the reduction of the number of new HIV infections
promote and facilitate collaborative research to reduce unnecessary duplication of research
provide evidence to improve access to care
enhance rigour in research methodology
improve the quality of data used for planning and implementing interventions, and
provide a platform for exchange of ideas through conferences and publications including a
journal and books
Focus areas
SAHARA's activities include:
Identifying key stakeholders in sub-Saharan Africa and increase wider dissemination of the research papers and reports to policy-makers, programme planners and other researchers.
Interacting with key users, including respective government departments to identify gaps and develop a systematised and integrated agenda for HIV/AIDS social and medical research in sub-Saharan Africa.
Facilitating prioritisation of the HIV/AIDS social research agenda through a consultative mechanism.
Facilitating networking and information sharing within the wider research community in South Africa and the sub-Saharan region, with a view to increase the number of multi-country, multi-research teams to conduct research. Visit the
SAHARA Conference webpages.
Identifying and making case studies public to form the basis of 'best practice' research and intervention.
Identifying those skills required for research and ways of strengthening institutions and international partners to dedicate time to social science research.
Identifying baseline information necessary for planning targeted intervention programmes and agreeing on harmonising standard monitoring and evaluation tools in the region.
Read more on the dedicated SAHARA Network website. You can browse the Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS.
