NOTE: The following is taken from summaries released by PEPFAR on the PEPFAR Data Dashboard. They are incomplete summary paragraphs only and do not contain the full mechanism details. When the full narratives are released, we will update the mechanism pages accordingly.

The Amhara Regional Health Bureau (ARHB) is the governing body for all health care related activities within Amhara, a region of 19,220,000 people. Twice the size of Ireland, it is divided into 13 zones, 467 woredas (districts), and includes an estimated 205,000 PLHIV. The goal of this IM is to transition PEPFAR supported comprehensive facility-based HIV care and treatment n activities to the RHB, ensure uninterrupted delivery of quality services at supported health facilities, while reaching approximately 76% of those infected by end of COP15. This IM aligns with the country’s strategy for sustainability and local ownership. Target populations are the urban and peri-urban areas, and rural hotspots in alignment with Amhara’s epidemic. Key populations shall be reached by establishing strong bidirectional linkages with outreach groups such as MULU1 and creating “MARPS friendly” HCT and OPD services. ARHB will leverage human, financial, and infrastructure resources from its own institution and other stakeholders and integrate other health care programs within ARHB to improve efficiency. The ARHB works in alignment with the National HMIS in its monitoring and evaluation of PEPFAR-supported program activities. The ARHB will report its activities based on PEPFAR indicators under each program area, share best practices, and use site-level data for program improvement. Progress toward transition shall be assessed utilizing Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) approved milestones. Four months into its first year PEPFAR funding, ARHB is only now gaining access to COP13 funds. It is anticipated that the mechanism outlay rate will sharply increase as the RHB assumes responsibility for the activities previously implemented by the US-based university technical assistance (TA) partner.

Since COP2014, PEPFAR no longer produces narratives for every mechanism it funds. However, PEPFAR has now included performance targets or indicator information for each mechanism based on the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting (MER) system. The MER guidance is available on PEPFAR's website https://www.pepfar.gov/reports/guidance/. Note that COP years 2014-2015 were under a previous version of the MER system and the indicators and definitions may have changed as of the new 2.0 guidance.