SAHARA is an alliance of partners who seek to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in Africa. It consists of a core office and regional offices.

Objectives

SAHARA undertakes multi-country and multi-site research, which enables it to make a significant contribution to evidenced-based policy formulation and practice, and through its network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners, to ensure widespread dissemination of that research. Specifically, the key objectives of SAHARA are to:

• Facilitate a research network in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Generate scientific material in the area of the social aspects of HIV and AIDS.
• Produce a journal on the social aspects of HIV and AIDS.
• Convene a regular SAHARA conference.
• Conduct policy research on access to drugs and trade-related issues.
• Improve the quality of data that is used for planning and implementing HIV and AIDS interventions and policies (best practices).
• Facilitate increased women's participation in decision-making in academic and research institutions.
• Establish SAHARA information systems.

Host Organisation

The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is the administrative host organisation for SAHARA. All funding and finance issues are handled through the HSRC. SAHARA's core office is housed in the HSRC, and plays both a coordination and support role in SAHARA. Information dissemination and funder liaison functions are also managed from the core office.

Background on the HSRC

The HSRC is a South African statutory body established in 1968. It supports development nationally, in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and in Africa. It primarily conducts large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non-governmental organisations and international development agencies, in partnership with researchers globally, but specifically in Africa. It aligns its research activities and structures to South Africa's national development priorities: notably poverty reduction through economic development, skills enhancement, job creation, the elimination of discrimination and inequalities, and effective service delivery. The HSRC has 120 researchers and 100 support staff in five different centres in South Africa.

The HSRC Press is an open access publisher committed to the dissemination of high quality social science research based publications, in print and electronic form. The Press publishes the research outputs of the HSRC and externally authored works, and uses a formal peer-review process to ensure the highest academic quality.

Governance

SAHARA has a continental Advisory Board, which is its main governing body. It is supported by three regional Advisory Boards. The role of the continental Advisory Board is to:

• provide strategic direction to SAHARA
• advise SAHARA on issues of HIV and AIDS research, priority research areas and ways to expand the network
• provide the latest expert knowledge on issues related to HIV and AIDS research which will inform present and future research projects.

Read the Terms of Reference of the Advisory Board.