UNAIDS is now in the process of developing its next Strategy for 2021 and beyond. The timeline for developing the Strategy was supposed to have started early this year, but it was hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has now been extended to accommodate a longer consultation period to ensure a full and more meaningful engagement of all stakeholders in the process. These details are reflected in the PCB Paper “UNAIDS Strategy Beyond 2021” which is posted to the UNAIDS website.

In order to determine the new goalposts and targets, it is important to take stock and review the existing strategy, UNAIDS 2016-2021 Strategy. This consultation process will involve interviews, focus group discussions and an online survey that will culminate in a multi-stakeholder consultation no later than September 2020.

As a first step in engaging communities and civil society more widely, we invite you to respond to the Online Survey (click here to access the survey).

This 15-20 minute survey is an opportunity to obtain perspectives on how UNAIDS is reaching its goal to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Is the current strategy successful or not? Did it effect change? What should have been done better? Where should the next Strategy be headed? Your perspectives on these themes will help inform and shape the content of the next Strategy, so that it is more responsive, inclusive, progressive and bold in the goals and targets it will set for the global HIV response beyond 2021.

Survey links in other languages:

Español: http://bit.ly/2MmkhhN

Français: http://bit.ly/2Mk2Hv1

Português: http://bit.ly/3gOPWq2

Русский: http://bit.ly/3dxIduQ

中文: http://bit.ly/36SR7jT

العربية: http://bit.ly/3cqwUmA

Tags: UNAIDS Strategy

Addressing gender-based violence is an area that communities of women and girls living with and most affected by the HIV epidemic, in all their diversity, report as an all-too common violation of their rights—and thus a major priority and demand for ensuring effective HIV responses.

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to enter into a contractual agreement with a successful bidder to carry out an Independent Evaluation of the Joint Programme’s work on preventing and responding to violence against women and girls.

The evaluation will provide an assessment of the Joint Programme’s support to the prevention of/ and response to violence against women and girls, across regions and countries. The evaluation is a major opportunity to learn, improve implementation, and strengthen the accountability of the UNAIDS Joint Programme - in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Learning will extend beyond the Joint Programme since ending gender-based violence is a UN system-wide mandated area of work for all entities.

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Click here for the Russian version

Click here for the Spanish version

Dear colleagues and friends,

As you may have heard, the 46^th UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) will be held on the virtual Interprefy platform through video conferencing from Tuesday, 23 June to Thursday, 25 June 2020.

The meeting will be run from the WHO Executive Board room with representatives of the PCB Chair, UNAIDS Executive Director, Deputy Executive Directors, and Secretariat support staff present in the room. The virtual sessions will be held on all three days from 13:00 to 16:00 (Geneva time) to accommodate participants from different time zones(PCB annotated agenda and PCB timewise agenda). The thematic segment, originally planned for the third PCB day, has been rescheduled to December 2020.

As has been the practice, the June PCB meetings are allotted for UNAIDS governance and management agenda items (or internal housekeeping), while programmatic or thematic items are taken up in during the December PCB meetings. If you are interested to attend the June PCB meeting, please find important information from UNAIDS Secretariat on registration for CS/NGO Observers, including important deadlines for registration and submission of statements, as well as the timeline for the pre-meetings.

REGISTRATION:

- Online registration is required for the PCB meetings through the registration link on the UNAIDS website by the deadline of Friday, 5 June 2020: http://pcbregistration.unaids.org/

- For those who would like to participate in the PCB related pre-meetings, which will start on Wednesday, 3 June 2020, the registration should be completed the latest by Wednesday, 27 May 2020. Registered participants will receive a link for testing their connectivity with Interprefy. A week is necessary for Interprefy to complete an IT and security check with each individual meeting participant.

The dates of the pre-meetings are as follows (actual time to be announced later):

a.Wednesday, 3 June 2020: Discussion on UNAIDS Strategy beyond 2021

b.Tuesday, 9 June 2020: Discussion on oversight items: Update on Human Resources Management Issues, Update on the Implementation of the Management Action Plan, Statement by the Chair of the UNAIDS Staff Association, and Organizational Oversight reports

c.Thursday, 11 June 2020: Discussion on Task team on community-led responses and PCB Working Group on follow-up to the JIU Review

d.Tuesday, 16 June 2020: Discussion on UBRAF (middle of the day);

Meeting documents will be regularly posted on the PCB website in English and French: http://www.unaids.org/en/whoweare/pcb/46

REGISTRATION FOR OBSERVERS:

UNAIDS wishes to draw the attention of the Missions and Organizations to the Modus Operandi of the UNAIDS PCB, which includes a provision that observer status may be granted by the Executive Director of UNAIDS, in consultation with the PCB Chairperson and upon receipt of a written application expressing a manifest interest, to any Member State of any of the UNAIDS Cosponsoring Organizations, and any intergovernmental or nongovernmental organization. Applications for observer status should be sent to [email protected], in parallel with the official registration on the UNAIDS website: http://pcbregistration.unaids.org before the deadline of Friday, 5 June 2020. Again, if you would like to participate in the scheduled pre-meeting sessions, starting on Wednesday, 3 June 2020, please submit your request and registration the latest by Wednesday, 27 May 2020.

REGISTRATION LIMITATIONS:

Due to the technological limitations and security considerations that accompany a virtual meeting, registration to the meetings will be limited to two (2) speakers and two (2) listeners for Member State Observers, NGO Observers, and Intergovernmental Organizations. Exceptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the PCB Chair and the UNAIDS Executive Director. For PCB Member and Observer delegations with fewer than three members participating, all members of the delegation will be granted speaker status.

Please note that there is a limit of 300 speakers (for both PCB and non-PCB members), so approval will be on a first come-first served basis. Meanwhile, there are 1,000 slots for listeners.

WRITTEN OR VIDEO STATEMENTS:

Following the intersessional approval of the “Modalities and Procedures for the 46th UNAIDS virtual PCB meeting” (UNAIDS/PCB (46)/20.3), registered participants are requested to send their pre-recorded presentations, statements and comments in any of the six official languages of the UN to: [email protected] no later than Friday, 19 June 2020. Due to time constraints, they would appreciate submissions in English or French, and as early as possible to inform the pre-meetings starting on Wednesday, 3 June 2020.

Please note that due to the short time allotted for the actual meeting days, there will be very limited opportunities to make statements or interventions. UNAIDS Secretariat is still discussing ways to manage the submission and posting of statements.

If you have questions for clarification, please email the NGO Delegation’s Communication and Consultation Facility (CCF) directly: [email protected] and [email protected].

Tags: 46th PCB Meeting

In 2019, the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), an independent review body for UN agencies conducted an evaluation of UNAIDS governance and management. The JIU report, presented at the 45th PCB meeting in December, came up with a set of recommendations, which will require implementation. Also decided at the meeting was the establishment of a PCB Working Group to review the relevant JIU recommendations and submit reports for the 46th and 47th PCB Meetings scheduled for 2020.

The Working Group on the implementation of the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) Recommendations is composed of 14 members: ten members representing member states (two from each of the five ECOSOC regional groups: Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, Western Europe and other States); two PCB NGOs nominated by the NGO delegation; and, two representatives nominated by the cosponsors.

The Working Group was constituted in April 2020 with the following members:

PCB Member States: Liberia and Namibia for the African States; Belarus and Russian Federation for the Eastern European States; India and Thailand for the Asian States; Brazil and El Salvador for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and Canada and France for the Western European and Other States.

PCB NGO Delegation: HIV Vereniging Nederland, Netherlands, represented by Alexander Pastoors; The Jamaican Network of Seropositives, Jamaica, represented by Jumoke Patrick.

Cosponsors: ILO and UNDP.

Alexander Pastoors from HIV Vereniging Nederland, one of the two PCB NGO Representatives in the UNAIDS PCB Working Group on the implementation of the JIU recommendations

The three main recommendations which the Working Group will be looking closely are:

Recommendation 1 Beginning in 2020, the Programme Coordinating Board should develop a long-term strategy to achieve the targets and goals of UNAIDS with regard to the 2030 Agenda.

Recommendation 3 By the beginning of 2021, the Programme Coordinating Board should revise its Modus Operandi to clarify its roles and responsibilities and imbed oversight and accountability mechanisms in the oversight of UNAIDS and its secretariat.

Recommendation 5 The Programme Coordinating Board should consider creating an independent and external oversight committee to provide independent expert advice to the Programme Coordinating Board and to the Executive Director in fulfilling their governance and oversight responsibilities.

The NGO Delegation sees this Working Group as a critical platform to address governance issues in UNAIDS, particularly with regards to civil society participation in the PCB. It is committed to engage in the discussions and consult with their constituencies who have a stake in ensuring that community and civil society spaces and voices in multilateral and intergovernmental bodies such as the UNAIDS PCB remain intact and protected.

Jumoke Patrick from The Jamaican Network of Seropositives, the second PCB NGO representative in the working group

For details on the terms of reference and composition of the Working Group, you may visit this link.

Tags: 45th PCB Meeting

Dear colleagues and friends,

Tags: 45th PCB Meeting