Moments in the Production of Space: Developing a Generic Adolescent Girls and Young Women Health Information Systems in Zimbabwe

TL;DR

This paper presents the development of a generic health information system in Zimbabwe aimed at monitoring and evaluating interventions for adolescent girls and young women to reduce HIV infections, using Lefebvre's theory of moments to understand space creation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of Lefebvre's theory to the development of health information systems for vulnerable youth populations in Zimbabwe.

Findings

Successful implementation of a monitoring system for AGYW interventions

Enhanced understanding of space creation in health system development

Potential for improved HIV prevention strategies

Abstract

With global targets to end AIDS by 2030 and to eliminate new HIV infections, Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) are seen to be particularly vulnerable, especially in Sub Saharan Africa. Numerous nations have therefore rolled out interventions to provide services to remove the determinants of vulnerability, such as limited education, early marriage, poverty, domestic violence, and exposure by male partners. Within this context, subpopulations such as sex workers increase the vulnerability amongst AGYW and are also supported through prevention programming. This study follows a project to develop a generic health information systems solution to provide a means to monitor and evaluate the successes of the AGYW initiative in reducing new infections. It borrows theoretical ideas from Henri Lefebvre's theory of moments to describe the process in which the space for the development of the solution is produced.