The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed we have begun using ‘SIDA’ as opposed to ‘the Alliance’ when referring to ourselves. This has been an issue of debate amongst the team, and whilst neither shorthand is perfect, we’ve decided SIDA is more appropriate for now.
Those of you working with international donors will be aware of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency which uses the acronym SIDA. However post-Brexit we perceive that fewer members of our community are interacting directly with the Swedish SIDA. On the other hand, here in Scotland there are multiple other organisations using ‘the Alliance’ as their descriptor. As more and more conversations take place on zoom we find ourselves on screen alongside the Health & Social Care Alliance, the Poverty Alliance or one of the many other organisations that use this name. As we seek to expand our community in Scotland, we feel it’s important that we aren’t confused with other organisations here. We also wanted to acknowledge the reality that many people already call us SIDA! From MSPs to media, we are often referred to by the simple acronym so we have now decided to embrace it. However, our general language recommendation is that it’s always best to be specific, so we will be using our full name where possible.