The NGO Delegation’s Communique for the 46th UNAIDS PCB Meeting is already out. The Communique contains the following sections: Report of the Executive Director; Report by the Chair of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organisations; UNAIDS Strategy beyond 2021; Unified Budget, Results and Accountability Framework (UBRAF); Progress report on establishment of the Task Team on Community-led responses; Report of the working group on the Joint Inspection Unit management and administration review of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); Update on the implementation of the Management Action Plan; Update on strategic human resources management issues; Organisational oversight reports – external audit report; Statement by the representative of the UNAIDS Secretariat Staff Association
Introduction
Alexander Pastoors, Europe Delegate
The 46th PCB Meeting was held virtually from June 23-25, 2020. Because the COVID-19 pandemic made an in-person meeting in Geneva impossible, the meeting used the Interprefy platform. Having a virtual PCB came with a series of challenges both for the UNAIDS Secretariat and the PCB members, not to mention the civil society observers and observer member states.
The biggest implication of organising a virtual PCB meeting was the reduced amount of meeting time allotted to each meeting day, compared to an in-person meeting. This meant that a lot of agenda items were pushed to the December meeting, including the NGO Delegation Report and the Thematic segment on cervical cancer and HIV. It also did not allow for much negotiation on decision points that had to be agreed on per agenda item.
Another consequence of the shift to a virtual meeting was the conduct of pre-meetings that emerged in the weeks prior to the PCB, in which the agenda items were presented and board members could ask questions. The Delegation also had to stagger bilateral meetings with PCB Member States, as well as with Cosponsors, Civil Society, and UNAIDS Executive Director, among others. For most of the members of the delegation, this was very challenging, both in workload, as well as having to attend either very early or very late in their respective time zones in calls for many days in a row.
In retrospect, given the many challenges, the virtual PCB meeting went well. Especially because the NGO Delegation succeeded in its advocacy to extend the timeline of the development of the new UNAIDS strategy, enabling better participation of civil society throughout the entire process.