A Policy Analysis of the Development of National Condom Policies and Management of Multiple Demands by Sudan National Aids Control Program

This Dr.PH is a detailed policy analysis account based on fieldwork collected over an extended period during 2008-2009. It describes how a national government body, the Sudan National Program on HIV/AIDS (SNAP), developed its first HIV prevention policies, and in particular those around condom promotion. Very little was known about how these policies were developed and how SNAP managed contradictory forces in an environment where traditional and religious beliefs played a strong role in social life, dictating collective norms as well as having influence in politics and policy. Despite the thesis now being historical, the insights it offers on these processes is still of relevance today. Data collection methods included documentary analysis, interviews (semi-structured and indepth) and observation of actors at SNAP, as well as SNAP’s counterparts in national and international organisations. Since the context was composed of these different influences, it continuously evolved and altered. As a result, interventions inevitably had to change and to be reinvented each time. Throughout the thesis, the account of SNAP policy actors occupying a “middle space” has highlighted the continual need to adapt and create new policy responses that are not introduced from “above” or “the outside” but rather genuinely engage with, and reflect, the concerns, beliefs and values of the people they are designed to help.