UNAIDS held a multi-stakeholder consultation on the findings and the recommendations made by the Global Review Panel that looked into the future operating model of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The consultation covered three critical areas of the report – financing and accountability, joint working, and governance – that must be addressed so that UNAIDS can fulfill its role in reaching the 90-90-90 targets by 2020 and ending AIDS by 2030.
I was requested by Co-Chairs Ambassador Lennarth Hjelmåker of Sweden and Health Minister Awa Coll-Seck of the Republic of Senegal to present the recommendations of the Global Review Panel (GRP) on the third pillar, which is on Governance, at the multi-stakeholder consultation that happened on April 28, 2017.
In keeping with the 39th PCB Decision Point 6.4, the PCB requested UNAIDS to establish a Global Review Panel to review the ‘fit for purpose’ and relevance of the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS. This was intended to respond to the budget crisis facing UNAIDS, with the aim to make the Joint Programme more efficient.
Lucy Wanjiku, leader of Sauti Sikika, an adolescent wing within All In! Kenya, supported by NEPHAK, was recommended by the NGO Delegation to speak at the Thematic Segment of the 38th meeting of the UNAIDS PCB in Geneva last June. Lucy shared what she understood as the role of young people (as part of the broader community most affected by HIV) in ending AIDS by 2030: to be listened to and engaged by committed leaders
According to the “Health for the World’s Adolescents” report in 2014 released by the World Health Organization, AIDS is now the second most common cause of death among adolescents aged 10-19 globally. This does not mean that we have to isolate HIV as an issue. The All-In to End Adolescent AIDS Launch Report by UNICEF early this year shows that adolescent girls are disproportionately affected because of gender-based inequality, age-disparate sex, and intimate partner violence.
One year ago, after two years of organizing by civil society, New York State’s Governor Andrew Cuomo committed to end AIDS as an epidemic in the State of New York by 2020. If achieved, this would make New York the first high HIV incidence jurisdiction in the world to end the epidemic.
I am privileged to have been nominated by the Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) to represent them on the NGO Delegation as the Asia-Pacific delegate. I am also honored to have Jeffery Acaba of Youth LEAD as my alternate, attending our first-ever PCB meeting.
The Interagency Task Team on Social Protection Care and Support held the first ever research and policy summit on structural interventions to address social drivers of extreme poverty and inequality and AIDS on January 15 and 16, at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC.
On March 27, members of the NGO Delegation joined the UNAIDS Secretariat, cosponsors, and Member States in Geneva as part of a multi-stakeholder consultation to review progress in meeting the goals of the UNAIDS 2011-2015 Strategy.