The African Network for the Care of Children Affected by HIV/AIDS was born in September 2001 out of the realization that the care of children living with and affected by HIV/AIDS at that time were not addressed. At that time, September 2001, there was an international conference in Kampala on the launch of the Global Call to Action for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV. The documents at that launch contained little on the care of children already living with and affected by HIV.Thus, some of the participants, (clinicians and social scientists), at that conference met and established ANECCA.

The secretariat of the network was hosted by the Regional Centre for the Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) at Makerere University and was funded by USAID/East Africa through RCQHC. USAID/East Africa funded all the activities of ANECCA up to 2012.