The 30th board meeting agenda included a wide variety of issues – from financial updates to a closer look at strategic investment. Discussions over decision points arising from this meeting were again dominated by the difficulty of some governments speaking about key populations, sexual and reproductive health rights, intellectual property and trade related agreements and criminalization issues. This was especially evident in the agenda items that dealt with civil society (NGO report) and legal issues (follow up to the last board meeting’s thematic session on HIV and the law). At one point in the meeting, the refusal of a minority of countries to support the right to justice of key populations caused the NGO Delegation and civil society Observers to stand in solidarity as the incoming Africa Delegate took the floor. He reminded the board that key populations exist in all regions of the world and that they remain essential partners in an effective and ethical HIV response.
This year’s NGO report focused on the financial impacts on civil society working in HIV and was of wide interest to all board members. The NGO Delegation was able to make some positive gains in the decisions arising from this paper, including that mechanisms for civil society support and accountability be enhanced within the new Global Fund architecture, and a focus on increasing civil society capacity to improve advocacy work on intellectual property and trade barriers.
UNAIDS continues to undergo an internal transition that will hopefully have the affect of increasing staff capacity, notably in the areas of human rights and gender, at the country level. It will be imperative that civil society activists pay close attention to how these changes are implemented at regional and local levels in order to assure UNAIDS progress and accountability.