After six months of implementing the pilot social contracting in Dong Nai province, LADDERS in partnership with Dong Nai Center of Disease Control (CDC) and  EpiC/FHI360 convened a meeting to review progress of the program in 2022 and plan for the year 2023. For the first social contract, Dong Nai CDC has engaged Hung Vu Social Enterprise which was grown from Full House Dong Nai CBO.

At this meeting, Hung Vu shared how they performed the contracted tasks as well as overcame the challenges in close collaboration with Long Thanh District Health Center and with strong support from Dong Nai CDC. The challenges, as cited, included the low cost norm as compared with the sub-contract norm and also the volume of financial acquittal work. At the end of the meeting, Dong Nai CDC presented their 2023 social contracting plan with specific targets and deliverables, calling for local CBOs’ engagement, adoption and proposal.

Without community-led complementarity to the national response, epidemic control in Vietnam would not be possible. Sustainable solutions including social contracting help ensure that local resources can and will sustain efforts beyond the life of donor assistance. Social contracting is one of the key solutions for sustainable financing to sustain the role of community organizations in the HIV/AIDS response. Through technical support, LADDERS helps build capacities and readiness for social contracting towards contributing to a resilient and timely response to surge public health needs where government funding is available to support community service delivery.

Figrue 1. Dr Nguyen Xuan Quang, Head of HIV/AIDS Unit, Dong Nai CDC, presented the 2023 social contracting plan

Figure 2. USAID LADDERS staff, Ms Nhung Truong, presented the TA plan to enhance community capacities for CBO participating in social contracting pilot