The STAR programme in Eastern and Southern Africa aims to increase the capacity of Hivos-partner civil society organisations working on HIV/AIDS and micro-finance issues to effectively apply ICTs to attain their goals. It is believed that enhanced ICT capacity among the organisations working in these fields will lead to improved communication with their different target groups, increased access to up-to-date and relevant information, and increased knowledge-sharing. It is expected that organisations participating in the STAR programme will become more effective and efficient.

As a whole, STAR focuses on Hivos-partner HIV/AIDS and microfinance organisations. These sectors have been selected because both are Hivos specialities, and it is believed that organisations active in these sectors have the potential to have a significant impact on the course of African development.

STAR activities (to date) with HIV/AIDS partners have included:

1. A Using ICTs for Strategic HIV/AIDS Communication Workshop, held in South Africa in February 2006;
2. Specific ICT interventions to improve communications with the target groups of particular participating organisations:
   

• An SMS-bulk tool (Straight Talk, Kenya)
• A Youth and Child Help Line (Yoneco, Malawi)
• A Youth Information Centre (Aro, Mozambique)
• A Mobile Games project developing HIV/AIDS games for mobile phones
  

The STAR programme, as an externally initiated support programme (not necessarily requested by Hivos partners), based on Hivos expertise of working with civil society organisations (CSOs), was premised on the notion that creating greater awareness of ICT tools and approaches among partners, could result in their finding appropriate tools to address some of their capacity challenges, particularly with regard to effective and efficient communications. From Hivos™ perspective, its knowledge of how ICT tools could be strategically employed to deal with effective and efficient communications meant that it had a responsibility to share this knowledge with partners that may not have been fully aware of the multiple practical and strategic uses of ICTs.