50^th

UNAIDS PCB Meeting

The 50th PCB meeting was marked by significant changes in the structure of UNAIDS, including those related to the continuous underfunding of the Joint Programme, the war in Ukraine, which affects not only the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but the whole world, and calls for donors on increasing funding for the global response to HIV/AIDS.

The NGO Delegation was renewed almost completely before this meeting, accepting seven new delegates into its ranks. Thanks to the support of “senior peers” and the CCF, they were able to get up to speed and get involved in an active discussion of decision points in the drafting rooms.

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PCB Summary Bulletin

50th PCB Meeting | 18 July 2022

NGO Delegation’s Summary Bulletin

The NGO Delegation’s Summary Bulletin for the 50th UNAIDS PCB Meeting reflects the engagement of the NGO Delegation on all agenda items amongst which: Indicator matrix for the 2022-2026 UBRAF and indicators, milestones, targets and data sources for the 2022-2023 Workplan and Budget, Follow-up to the thematic segment from the 49th PCB meeting, and Thematic Segment – “Positive Learning: harnessing the power of education to end HIV-related stigma and discrimination, empower young people, and provide a comprehensive HIV response”

Agenda items

1.3

Agenda Item 1.3 | 50th PCB Meeting

Report of the Executive Director

NGO Delegate representing Europe

Intervention delivered by Aleksei Lakhov

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50PCB group 3

Thank you Chair,

I speak on behalf of NGO Europe.

We acknowledge the report by the Executive Director and thank you, Winnie Byanyima, for being so straightforward and outspoken in your assessments. I would like to focus on the issues from your report that make us feel dismayed by the current state of affairs and anxious about the immediate future of the global HIV/AIDS response.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has a devastating effect on our communities. There have been numerous reports, both from UN agencies and our brave peers on the ground, on ARV and OST treatments disruptions, on critical medical and social infrastructure being razed to the ground by constant shelling, on thousands of lives being lost to this senseless bloodshed. This war will have far-reaching consequences for the whole Eastern Europe and Central Asia region – the region with the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world.

Recently, an important milestone in the global HIV/AIDS response has been reached – the adoption of the Global Health Sector Strategy on HIV, Viral Hepatitis and STIs. While we certainly welcome this achievement, the fact that only 61 countries have voted for it greatly concerns us. It continues the worrying trend of some Member States not being able to reach consensus on the most pressing issues, namely – ensuring access to uninterrupted prevention, treatment and care services for the most impacted communities.

Also, there was a lot of debate about the language of this Strategy. As a representative of the community of people who use drugs I can assure you that words are like bullets – they kill. Trust me – when you are called a “junkie” or a “useless addict” it prevents you from receiving life-saving services.

The 50th PCB meeting should be a commemorative one, and should celebrate reaching important milestones. Instead, we are running in circles.

Thank you.

NGO Delegate representing Africa

Intervention delivered by Iwatutu Joyce Adewole

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50PCB Joyce 3

Thank you Chair,

I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation and as an African region representative. My message today is for the member states who formed and serve on the board of this Joint Programme.

The Executive Director’s report struck me in two ways: Is this progress or backwardness? The answer could very well be both given the current state of the joint programme.

As a young woman from Africa, I have watched friends and families die of AIDS-related illnesses, I have seen families get disrupted, I have heard health care workers call us the HIV children, and I remember people selling their properties just to afford treatment, so many died from stigma and discrimination. With the leadership role of UNAIDS, we have laws and policies against discrimination and stigmatization of people living with HIV, with about 16million in the Africa region accessing treatment in 2018.

What more convincing story do you need? Your money is working, the results, data and lives are evidence of it and it is important for UNAIDS to continue this important work.

I can’t help but think that member states may be forgetting their most crucial objective and role in the AIDS response: to support, provide and mobilise sustainable global leadership in the AIDS response. What happens when we don’t have a fully funded UNAIDS, UBRAF and the Joint Programme? How are we going to end AIDS by 2030, and we are already failing to reach some key targets. How many more of our communities will have to suffer?

Some may be saying they are tired of the lack of leadership of UNAIDS within this current AIDS response. I would like to counter that belief, the leadership roles of UNAIDS has created effective programmes and policies, it has created structures, strategy and systems for other institutions to work with. Many institutions (including the Global Fund) working within the AIDS response look up to the expertise, capacity and system of UNAIDS. It will be a great mishap in judgement for donors to support other institutions and not fully fund UNAIDS, the very institution that took the leadership role during the most urgent time of the response. Doing so would be like building a skyscraper without a strong foundation, a scenario leading to a disaster none of us would like to see

The NGO delegation has been watching, and we know there is more money if there is political will. What I am asking you today is to support with enthusiasm the milestones UNAIDS has achieved and work done over the past 25 years, and more importantly, the continuity of it and the commitment we have made to the impacted communities.

1.4

Agenda Item 1.4 | 50th PCB Meeting

Report of the Chair of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations

NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific

Intervention delivered by Charanjit Sharma

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50PCB Charan

Thank you Chair,

The NGO Delegation welcomes the CCO’s report and thanks the Co-Sponsoring Organisations on their hard work. As representatives of Civil Society, we find these actions to be of the highest priority and a transversal, cross-cutting agenda fundamental to end AIDS, given that talking about HIV implies ending inequalities, as stated in the Global AIDS Strategy. And, for that, we celebrate the Global Strategies Initiative being implemented by the CCO.

In the Asia Pacific region where I am from, we have seen the added value of the Co-sponsors in HIV programmes especially in countries where UNAIDS offices no longer exist. We have seen Co-sponsors engaging more with the key and priority population communities, and bringing their voices to the government.

A lot is at stake, and the very communities we are helping and those not yet reached are depending on our collective efforts. However, the work of the Joint Programme and the Co-sponsors is currently underfunded. .

This is detrimental to the Joint Programme and poses a threat to the HIV response. UNAIDS sets an example of good participatory practices in decision-making processes, for which a weak Joint Programme will send a wrong message to programmers and communities around the world, not being able to put up with the same commitments also required at regional and in country levels to end AIDS.

Additionally, with regards to stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV, women and girls and key populations, the in country presence of the Joint Programme is essential in order to “assess and scale innovative policies and practices on the path to removing punitive and discriminatory laws, including criminalisation”. Therefore, we highlight the importance of diversifying funding resources as a way to sustain and strengthen UNAIDS and the HIV response worldwide. This request can only be achieved with your concerted support.

As a Delegation, we firmly believe in the principle of GIPA and ‘nothing about us without us’, and that the HIV-response must meaningfully involve civil society, key and priority populations and impacted communities. and we acknowledge the experience of the Joint Programme as a success story of that challenge and encourage the Co-Sponsoring Organisations Member States and the broader society to follow its lead.

Thank you

Agenda Item 2 | 50th PCB Meeting

Follow-up to the thematic segment from the 49th PCB meeting

NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean

Intervention delivered by Jumoke Patrick

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50PCB Jumoke

Thank you chair,

I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation

We made a deliberate promise at the 49^th PCB that you will be hearing from us on this agenda item again. The truth is, we don’t believe many countries and people in positions of power and leadership are listening, and we don’t believe many want to listen as evidenced in their actions

But let me first express my appreciation and thanks to the speakers at the 49^th PCB thematic for deciding to recognize that the global HIV response can do more and should do more when it comes to data. Data are essential to health not only to achieve a more focused and better-quality health for all but also to design and deliver HIV programmes and quality healthcare for all more effectively. To design and implement holistic and differentiated programmes using data for the enhancement of my health can create a better understanding of me, treatment of me, and appropriately refer me for social and other needed services that are integral to my holistic health as a gay man from the Latin and Caribbean region.

Yet, the approach to collecting and using data differs in many countries as we are still witnessing surveillance and research in countries which still criminalize HIV non-disclosure and transmission, and as well those countries that persecute and criminalize people who use drugs, sexworkers and gender and sexual minorities.

I am using this platform to echo the calling for the ethical usage of data and technology for the upliftment and development of communities and not for the sake of further marginalization and criminalization. Importantly, communities should be at the heart of research and technology. Communities should be centered in the designing, implementation and monitoring with enough resources to leverage the support needed to effectively use those data to harness positive actions, improve quality of life and enhance human rights. We have heard time and again that the “community” is at the heart of the response. Thus, Community-Led Monitoring (CLM) should be led by the key populations themselves.

All of this will be impossible to achieve if a global mechanism for recognizing data protection and privacy of people living with HIV and key population groups is not embedded in regional and national responses for communities. Security and protection is important, especially in countries that still outlaw same-sex relationships and countries that continue to demonstrate high levels of stigma and discrimination towards PLHIV.

To collect, use and address the global HIV response through data is to put the rights of the people first.

Thank you

Agenda Item 3 | 50th PCB Meeting

Leadership in the AIDS Response

NGO Delegate representing North America

Intervention delivered by Cecilia Chung

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50PCB Cecilia

The NGO delegation is heartened by the many challenges that the two speakers took notice of, especially around human rights, and the need for more community-led and people-centered interventions for HIV prevention and treatment.

It’s interesting to be using the word leadership. We wholeheartedly agree that we need to fully replenish the global fund, we need to continue to invest in UNAIDS, but it seems like a double standard when some of the Member States have the same challenges in their own backyards – that they are yet to reduce punitive laws and discriminations against key populations. There is also another pandemic that I don’t think that we’ve talked enough about. It’s violence against women, which also contributes to the current HIV crisis, especially in Sub Saharan Africa. And even back home which is one of the biggest donors to the HIV response, the court is set to dial the gain on sexual and reproductive health and rights back by 50 years.

We thank Peter Sands for the leadership of the Global Fund in galvanizing donors for the up-coming replenishment, and would like to request that every opportunity for a strong message that donors must also support a fully funded Joint Programme as well. We also hope that within the new Global Fund strategy, more support will be given to key population-led interventions and capacity strengthening of key population-led organisations and networks. However, we do not support the use of matching funds as a fundraising strategy as it attaches more strings before the resources are dispersed

We also enthusiastically welcome the new leadership of PEPFAR, Dr. John Nkengasong. As a transwoman from the US, I have seen our opponents actively pass punitive laws that dehumanises transgender youth and seek to criminalise families and healthcare providers who chose to affirm their children and patients’ gender expression and identities. We look for your leadership to address this, and ensures that transgender women and transgender men are not being left behind.

The PEPFAR Vision 2025 Strategy must ensure that funding is channeled through and to local, indigenous key population-led organisations and networks and help to strengthen their capacity to do their work sustainainably.

The NGO delegation believes that if we really want to achieve the goals we set for HIV response by 2030, we should be doubling down on the investment and not asking for just pennies.

We have seen, with the COVID response and and also the effort to support Ukraine, how much resources can be allocated and sent. To that effort, if only half of that or even just 10% of that was invested in, the global health strategy, We believe we would have achieved health equity a long time ago. The NGO delegation would like to urge all Member States, Global Fund and UNAIDS to really take a stronger stance.

We need your leadership. Your courage to lead is just as important as the monetary support, thank you.

4.1

Agenda Item 4.1 | 50th PCB Meeting

UBRAF Performance reporting

NGO Delegate representing Europe

Intervention delivered by Aleksei Lakhov

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50 PCB Aleksey 2

Thank you Chair,

I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation.

Today, the entire NGO Delegation is wearing T-shirts with the colors of the flag of Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with our peers and the people of Ukraine during these trying times and demand an immediate cessation of the hostilities.

Military conflicts, COVID-19 pandemic and other humanitarian crises are reflected throughout the 2016-2021 UBRAF Performance Reports. But they are not the only reasons behind some critical indicators not having been met. In fact, it’s quite a few Member States that should be held accountable for HIV response lagging behind.

It is those Member States that criminalize drug use, sex work, same sex relationships, transgender people and other ways to be ourselves. It is those Member States that maintain a deafening silence during PCB meetings when it comes to discussing key populations. It is those Member States that invest billions in their colonial, imperialistic ambitions instead of providing 10 times less for critical HIV services.

Meanwhile, donors keep asking us to make our programs specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. To be SMART, in short. But how smart is it when people living with HIV, people who use drugs, gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people and other communities are not involved in the decision-making processes on their own fate? How smart is it when you have voluntary male circumcision but do not scale-up PrEP interventions? How smart is it when incarceration is preferred to harm reduction?

At the 49th PCB meeting, we said that a fully funded UBRAF was a prerequisite for success in 2022. To our deep regret, what we are witnessing is a shortfall of at least 30 million US dollars in the core funding for this year alone, in part – because of currency fluctuations. People literally keep dying because of exchange rates!

With the current level of investment and commitment on behalf of many Member States, we won’t be able to end the AIDS epidemic not by 2025, not by 2030 – not even by 2050.

Thank you.

4.2

Agenda Item 4.2 | 50th PCB Meeting

UBRAF Financial reporting

NGO Delegate representing Africa

Intervention delivered by Mubanga Chimumbwa

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50PCB Mubanga

Thank you Chair,

I am speaking on behalf of the NGO Delegation. I’m from Africa where the HIV burden is twice that of many populations in the world. Ending AIDS by 2030 as a public health threatshould be a Sustainable Development Goal and as such, bringing the epidemic under control is essential for the long-term sustainability of HIV response results.

If new HIV infections are not drastically reduced soon, the medium- to long-term costs of the epidemic will keep rising. Complacency about the need to accelerate equitable AIDS responses will lead to increased health spending pressures on communities, governments, and funders.

It is also very unacceptable to realize that the UNAIDS Joint Programme is still facing financial challenges despite the approval of the UBRAF by Member States and donors. Unfortunately about 25 million dollars is not funded for the current UBRAF and 12 millioncontinues to be lost in the market exchange rate according to the recent financial report. We need to acknowledge the fact that HIV remains the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age and the leading cause of death of adolescents in Africa — including young people.

In many countries, the UNAIDS Joint Programme supports country policy and shapes the HIV response. Therefore, without fully funded UNAIDS Joint Programme Global Fund will not achieve its intended targets in bridging the gaps of communities, key populations adolescent and young women, to name but a few. It is very unfortunate that the funding trends are troubling especially at this critical moment, with COVID -19 still being a threat to the communities.

We have to repeat our statement that poorly planned, misplaced priorities and unexecuted donor transitioning heavily affect us as communities, resulting in service disruptions and high HIV prevalence in some countries. How many more of us need to die before you will provide the Joint Programme what is required for it to function fully? The global community will fail to fulfill the Sustainable development goals of “leaving no one behind”, if key and priority targeted interventions are not fully funded with the, health and social programmes .

People-centered and human rights-based approaches demanded by us, as communities, should be the hallmark of the fully funded HIV Joint programme response. Therefore, as civil society, we call upon donor countries to contribute at least one million dollars of additional funding, such as we had seen yesterday by Germany, or a pledge for multi-year contribution by the UK, to the UNAIDS Joint Programme so it can focus its work on our communities’ needs.

As communities and organizations of people living with HIV, we should drive the reshaping of the sustainability agenda, as we know how, what, where and when works. Fund the response now before it becomes too late.

Thank you Chair.

Agenda Item 5 | 50th PCB Meeting

Indicator matrix for the 2022-2026 UBRAF and Indicators, milestones, targets and data sources for the 2022-2023 Workplan and Budget

NGO Delegate representing North America

Intervention delivered by Christian Hui

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50PCB Christian 3

Thank you Chair,

I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation.

As a delegation, we appreciate the Secretariat for developing an ambitious and complex UBRAF Indicator Matrix evaluation framework and applaud the inclusion of working group members from civil society to support its development. While it is an undoubtedly innovative framework, we have a few suggestions for you to consider:

First, while holding in mind the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the under-reporting of the 2020 GAM data, we nonetheless find it troubling that the Joint Programme Outcome 1 on adults and children with suppressed viral loads is benchmarked at 66%, a glaring disconnect to the Global AIDS Strategy target of 95% by 2025. As people living with HIV, we are not afraid to say this: we deserve better.

Second, we ask Member States, including donor countries, to invest more effort and resources to ensure the reporting of the GAM data is timely and complete so the UBRAF baseline estimates and targets are accurate. To further finetune HIV/AIDS data, we recommend member states to invest in the building of necessary infrastructures to support community-led monitoring and evaluation of programmes, services, and HIV policies. Triangulating CLM data and national GAM data can identify gaps requiring urgent attention and accelerate the attainment of UBRAF outcomes linked to the global targets.

Third, to support the ending of inequalities agenda, we encourage further granularization of certain data within the matrix. Disaggregating data in Results Area Indicator RA8.2.2 and Strategic Output Indicator S1.2 can make visible the number of key population networks that have received technical support, and provide data on equity-seeking sub-priority populations such as people in incarceration, migrants, and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour who can benefit from meaningful engagement and leadership development within the global HIV/AIDS response.

Fourth, we call on UNAIDS to ensure indicators within the matrix reflect advances in science, such as including dapivirine rings, long-acting injectables and U=U as part of the indicators. Also, key populations should be described in a consistent manner. In Results Area 1.1.1, the following phrase was used: “people who use drugs (in all counties where people inject drugs).” While the wording was likely chosen to ease political tensions, we now know we should not fall prey to those who do not respect human rights, spread disinformation, and attempt to stall the path to progress.

Please take note that a lack of political commitment and the prioritization on neoliberal performance reporting have caused entities to divert valuable attention and resources to spreadsheets and percentages rather than real people. We wish to reiterate the accountability expected of Member States, the Joint Programme and the Co-Sponsors is on us – people living with HIV and key priority population groups. If you want real, valid, unfiltered evaluation feedback, ask us.

Lastly, we sincerely thank the UK and Germany for announcing their pledges yesterday, and we request all Member States to act in solidarity to fully fund UNAIDS and the UBRAF at this critical juncture.

Thank you!

Agenda Item 6 | 50th PCB Meeting

Update on strategic human resources management issues

NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean

Intervention delivered by Gastón Devisich

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50 PCB Gaston 2

Thank you Chair,

Firstly, the NGO Delegation would like to commend the UNAIDS Secretariat for its dedication during this past year. Your hard work did not go by unnoticed, especially during the uncertain times of the financial context, the Alignment process, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As community representatives, we are convinced the Alignment has come at the best time possible, allowing us to model the global HIV response on a people-centered approach while incorporating the lessons learned on global health during these past 2 years. We would encourage this process to be completed in a human-centered, dignified way that reflects the hallmark of UNAIDS’ work. Nonetheless, we can once again witness the effects of a non fully funded UBRAF. The alignment process demands the adoption of a decentralized, knowledge-driven focus to build a more networked organization, but we can not integrate young people and the world-class technical and strategic capacities they have cultivated in their countries if there is not a solid structure to accommodate them and ensure the scope of their expertise.

During these past days, we heard how in Latin America and the Caribbean, there is fear of various UNAIDS’ offices being emptied and closed. And they are most definitely not alone. At the same time, there are reports from Civil Society leaders in Lower to Middle Income Countries having difficulties with visa applications to attend the 24th International AIDS Conference. That is why I am delivering my intervention in English today. We need Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, Northern Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia to be integrated into the global HIV-response. We need to do more for Sub-Saharan Africa, we must stop leaving people behind.

If we want transformations that are equitable and sustainable, we need for the Joint Programme to commit to remain present at country in every single region in the world. We need those offices not only to remain open but to flourish.

Thank you,

Agenda Item 7 | 50th PCB Meeting

Statement by the representative of the UNAIDS Secretariat Staff Association (USSA)

NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean

Intervention delivered by Jumoke Patrick

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50PCB Jumoke 3

Thank you, Chair. I am speaking on behalf of the NGO Delegation.

UNAIDS is in its 25th year as a committed and strong global advocacy movement that puts people first, that puts people at the centre of its operation and people first to carry out its mandate as a progressive global change agent. For this reason, I am disheartened to hear another Staff Association report where there remains a troubling low level of trust between staff and senior leadership. Without a doubt as a delegation, we understand that currently, UNAIDS sits on uneasy ground with a global pandemic, humanitarian crisis, budget cuts and an alignment process occurring at the same time which is all causing destabilisation and uncertainty. Yes, we are in difficult times and such a time calls for leadership and transformation that will come at a cost for many, but never should it be at a cost to the people driving the response and the people central to the effectiveness of the response

We have noted and seen improvement within UNAIDS in the engagement and frequency of which staff are engaged in different processes and congratulate the senior leadership for recognizing that communication is key to the process and that the fit for purpose and realignment process being undertaken won’t be successful if engagement and communication processes are not embedded in the practices and procedures moving forward with the staff of UNAIDS

We have a perfect opportunity NOW to collaborate better to make UNAIDS the change agent for the people we serve. This process is bigger than the Senior Leadership and the leadership of the staff association. This moment and this entire joint programme are for the People who continue to live in danger, the people who continue to be criminalised, the people who continue to have unequal access to treatment AND those who are yet to even see the benefit of a UNAIDS in their country. Looking ahead, we hope that the staff association and the UNAIDS management can find common grounds and better transparent engagements. The hard work of the staff is very much noted and has impacted many and we acknowledge both (Management and Staff) have the good of UNAIDS at heart, to improve staff morale and confidence, to address injustices & inequalities, conflicts and to show US the people living with and impacted by HIV that together they can make powerful moves in the HIV response and as we implement a progressive Global AIDS Strategy.

Agenda Item 8 | 50th PCB Meeting

Independent Organizational Oversight Reports and Management Response

NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific

Intervention delivered by Midnight Poonkasetwatana

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50PCB Midnight

Thank you chair,

I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation, and wish everyone a Happy Pride Month.

There have been positive developments and encouraging initiatives taken up to address grievances at the workplace. It is laudable to learn that the majority of staff at UNAIDS completed training courses on Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) as well as courses on ethics and integrity and preventing fraud & corruption.

It was very interesting to learn about the Independent External Oversight Advisory Committee (IEOAC) observations and advice to the PCB and the Executive Director, with a view to strengthening governance and oversight within UNAIDS.

We suggest that:

UNAIDS fast-track the implementation of long-outstanding audit recommendations noted in the report of the Internal Auditor; and that
UNAIDS senior management ensures that the organization has sustainable funding for its core programmes.

Please note that the external auditor found that some indicators of UBRAF 2016-2022 were not recorded consistently, including one indicator related to a human rights related indicator. This was not addressed in any of the UBRAF reports, so we need to make sure that the new matrix will address issues found by the external auditor.

We are delighted that an Independent Ethics Office has been established and the head of the Ethics Office is now in place. Sufficient resources and support to the Ethics Office are needed – otherwise there comes a time when the office consists of only one person which may not be enough to effectively deal with the breadth and depth of the work required.

The Joint Inspector Unit (JIU) recommended that consideration is given to “how to best support the office with appropriate staffing and/or backup”. We hope that PCB, UNAIDS Executive Director and Secretariat will ensure that the Ethics Office has adequate resources to carry out its functions.

The NGO Delegation would like to know what measures are in place to protect staff from retaliation because this is critical for ensuring that UNAIDS is a safe workplace. The 2020 Global Staff Survey showed that only 37% staff members reported confidence they would not face adverse consequences if they reported a case of abusive conduct. We hope that this percentage will improve in the next Global Staff Survey.

Thank you

Agenda Item 10 | 50th PCB Meeting

Thematic Segment: “Positive learning: harnessing the power of education to end HIV-related stigma and discrimination, empower young people and provide a comprehensive HIV response”

NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean

Intervention delivered by Gastón Devisich

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The intervention of the NGO Delegation at this very panel is about the value of peer-education. We often conceive it as an approach to health promotion, but it is so much more than that. It addresses the many expressions of stigma, bolsters one’s confidence and empowerment and provides a sense of belonging to many, for the first time in their lives. Peer-education is a double process: it enables you to do much more than just transfer capacities, it allows you to also catalyze emerging needs from your community.

In this matter, youth-led organizations face particular challenges throughout their life cycles. Meaning that once a young person reaches a certain age, you have to leave your organization for an adult-led one in order to continue your own personal path and make room for newer generations to speak up for themselves. It is not enough to have been young to understand today’s youth. For this reason, the growth, transitions and transformations of youth and youth-led organizations create great instability among youth-led organizations, as people come in, get to receive proper training and then have to leave, taking that symbolic capital with them.

If we want young people and adolescents to have a meaningful involvement in the HIV response, we need to support them in regards to peer-education. For youth to lead, we not only have to fund them and include them in decision-making, implementation and evaluation processes. We need to provide them with capacity building opportunities in order for them to develop their own sustainable training mechanisms and processes. This will allow youth to be able to exercise their autonomous voice and enhance an intersectional dialogue that can strengthen the history of youth-led response.

50thPCB Gaston Intervention

NGO Delegate representing Africa

Intervention delivered by Iwatutu Joyce Adewole

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50PCB Joyce wb

I am a young disabled woman from Africa. If I were in Canada or the USA, I would be a young black immigrant woman with a disability. This tells that everywhere in the world, young people embody multiple intersecting, marginalized and overlapping identities that increase their vulnerabilities. School, next to their home, is supposed to be the safest place for adolescents and young people. Sadly, the school stands as a place where many of us face inequalities, human rights violations, and continuous stigma and discrimination. Covid-19 showed the world the realities of the widening inequality gap in the educational system in Africa and the disparities which exist within the rest of the world.

How do we break down HIV-related stigma and discrimination without sharing knowledge of the proper responses? How do we address the rising epidemic with ignorance standing in the way? The answer is simple; we can’t.

Formal and informal education with innovative approaches will play a vital key role in addressing these inequalities and shrinking the inequality gap, thereby reducing HIV transmission and HIV-related stigma and discrimination. What matters is giving young people access to inclusive education and ensuring a qualitative education through good measurement techniques and holding the government accountable for its commitments. Information remains a critical tool, and it is essential to maximize it. The focal point of CSE is to provide adolescents and young people with well-rounded information that extends beyond head knowledge and practical applications of what they have learned. We believe that with the proper learning, they will understand themselves better both physically and mentally, develop “respectful social and sexual relationships”, and make their individual choices conscious of how they affect themselves and others.

Today’s young people must be at the front and center of the response for large-scale global change, to drive conversations and actions and end the epidemic. We must be seen as Co-leaders in the AIDS response, Youth engagement must be fostered by actively listening to youths in the process of leading discussions and the decision-making processes, it must be adequately and sustainably funded and given resources to thrive. The doors must be thrown open for teachers and students living with HIV. This is a start to building back better and demolishing the walls of exclusion and discrimination come crashing down.

50^th

UNAIDS PCB Meeting

PCB Summary Bulletin

NGO Delegation’s Summary Bulletin

Agenda items

Report of the Executive Director

Intervention delivered by Aleksei Lakhov

Intervention delivered by Iwatutu Joyce Adewole

Report of the Chair of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations

Intervention delivered by Charanjit Sharma

Follow-up to the thematic segment from the 49th PCB meeting

Intervention delivered by Jumoke Patrick

Leadership in the AIDS Response

Intervention delivered by Cecilia Chung

UBRAF Performance reporting

Intervention delivered by Aleksei Lakhov

UBRAF Financial reporting

Intervention delivered by Mubanga Chimumbwa

Indicator matrix for the 2022-2026 UBRAF and Indicators, milestones, targets and data sources for the 2022-2023 Workplan and Budget

Intervention delivered by Christian Hui

Update on strategic human resources management issues

Intervention delivered by Gastón Devisich

Statement by the representative of the UNAIDS Secretariat Staff Association (USSA)

Intervention delivered by Jumoke Patrick

Independent Organizational Oversight Reports and Management Response

Intervention delivered by Midnight Poonkasetwatana

Thematic Segment: “Positive learning: harnessing the power of education to end HIV-related stigma and discrimination, empower young people and provide a comprehensive HIV response”

Intervention delivered by Gastón Devisich

Intervention delivered by Iwatutu Joyce Adewole

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