Bangula settlement in Nsanje District, in the south of Malawi, is an arduous five kilometre walk from the border with Mozambique.

It is a walk that approximately 2 000 Mozambicans have made since they were displaced a month ago by the floods caused by Cyclone Idai. The settlement is also a temporary home to approximately 3 500 Malawians from surrounding villages who were also displaced.

Being predominately a small holder farming community, their homes, belongings and livelihoods were all washed away by the floods. They are now at Bangula, waiting for the earth to dry so they can go home and begin rebuilding their lives.

The emergency response to assist the 81 000 people in the district affected by the floods is being coordinated by the Government of Malawi, the United Nations, development partners and non-governmental organizations.

Upon arrival at the settlement, heads of households are provided with mats and blankets to sleep on and maize meal to cook.

Women and children are housed in 21 tents to the rear of the settlement, while others sleep under open industrial sheds, on concrete floors under tin rooves.

On a visit to the camp, Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director, heard that while some amenities are being provided, there is not enough shelter for everyone and there is no lighting at night, which exacerbates vulnerabilities, especially of women and children.

It is well known that sexual and gender-based violence against women and children is heightened in emergency settings such as the one at Bangula. People also spoke of a lack of adequate nutrition, access to clean water and sanitation as well as their experiences of stigma and discrimination.

The small clinic at the settlement mostly focuses on primary health care and offers antenatal and postnatal services, HIV counselling and testing, refills of HIV treatment and psycho-social support.

While at the settlement Mr Sidibé spoke to a group of people living with HIV who had come to the settlement for shelter. They spoke of how, when the floods came, they tried to keep their HIV treatment safe from the water.

“When the floods came, my house was destroyed. But I managed to reach for my plastic bag where I keep my ARVs, because it is one of my most precious possessions,” said Sophia Naphazi, who resides in Jambo village in the district.

Elizabeth Kutenti, another women living with HIV, spoke of how her pills were safe because she keeps them in the roof. “They are my life,” she said.

The support people at the settlement need to return home is modest. “We need three things: a plastic sheet to cover what is left of our homes; maize seeds to plant and a hoe. Then we can go home,” said Miliam Moses.

“The level of resilience I have seen today is just amazing,” said Mr Sidibé. “The most important message I have heard today is one of hope.”

Mr Sidibé was accompanied by Atupele Austin Muluzi, Minister of Health and Population in Malawi. He thanked the UN agencies and the government departments supporting coordinating in the emergency response.

“We need continued support so that all the people in this settlement get the help they need so they can return home and live in dignity,” he said.

In 2013, UNAIDS launched the Daily Development blog to explore, in the run up to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global development and the people behind it. The blog covered the whole range of development issues to be addressed by the SDGs—health, human rights, innovation, the arts, education, economics, the environment and more.

Both high-level policy-makers and people working on the ground in some of the world’s most difficult conditions were asked to give their stories. Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, spoke about her passion for ensuring that girls are educated. Edward Tommy, a journalist from Freetown in Sierra Leone, describes his experience of working at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in mid-2014. And Aidan McQuade, Director of Anti-Slavery International, wrote about why there is still a need for an anti-slavery organization in the modern world. What unites those authors, and the dozens of other people we spoke to, is their commitment towards improving the lives of others—they were working towards achieving the 17 SDGs even before they were formulated.

Daily Development was founded as both a blog and a book project. With the adoption of the SDGs in New York in September the blog published its last post, but as the culmination of the project UNAIDS has published a book, telling the stories of all who we spoke to over the past two years.

Quotes

New information and communication technologies are changing the way in which gay men and other men who have sex with men meet their sexual partners. Today, men who have sex with men, including those who are not openly gay or who fear stigma, are able to arrange to meet other men, look for entertainment, find health information and mobilize through dating applications, the Internet and other digital media.

Such technologies also represent an important resource for extending the reach and enhancing the effectiveness of HIV prevention programmes among gay men and other men who have sex with men. They hold the potential to drive measurable programmatic improvements by collecting and disseminating information, linking virtual content to physical services and complementing offline components of HIV programmes.

In order to improve the reach of HIV services and the impact of HIV prevention programmes, UNAIDS, in collaboration with the Global Forum on MSM & HIV, the USAID funded LINKAGES programme and Health Policy Project, organized a consultation to develop a framework to engage the private and public sectors and communities in using new media technologies for HIV prevention among gay men and other men who have sex with men.

Participants

The participants included experts in the area of new media and HIV among gay men and other men who have sex with men, including some of the largest private companies that own dating platforms, programme implementers, researchers and advocates.

Key messages

• A number of large, for-profit, gay dating applications and Internet companies with a very large number of clients already support initiatives to foster the health and well-being of their clients. They have the potential to reach people at higher risk of HIV infection with information and refer them to HIV service providers.   
• Public–private partnerships on new media technologies for the health of gay men and other men who have sex with men need to be strengthened. A better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the private and public sectors as well as community organizations and networks is required. 
• Innovative projects are increasingly using new information technologies to strengthen the HIV response among gay men and other men who have sex with men across the project cycle, from planning to implementation to monitoring and evaluation. These need to be evaluated and scaled-up.
• National AIDS programmes need to increasingly include the use of new information and communication technologies in their strategies and policies, build their own information and communications technology capacity and fund such programmes.
• Data safety issues need to be addressed.  
• The use of new media should be included in core HIV packages and programmes; international guidance should be developed regarding minimum standards, training requirements or measures of success.

Quotes

MELBOURNE, 20 July 2014—In a meeting initiated by UNAIDS and hosted by the city of Melbourne, Australia, global leaders agreed that cities and local leadership are the key to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. The inaugural Cities for Social Transformation meeting took place on the sidelines of the 20th International AIDS Conference. Mayors and representatives of 18 cities, governors, senior members of parliament, health ministers, a Head of State and senior health professionals attended the event.

The leaders committed to a rapid scale-up of prevention, treatment, care and support programmes, as well as addressing the needs of people at higher risk of HIV infection.

“It’s time to focus on local epidemics and city governments will be the driving force for change. They have the resources and the architecture to deliver essential social and health services,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “They are the catalyst for forging new partnerships between communities, civil society and government. We will not end the AIDS epidemic without harnessing the power of cities.”

Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, the President of Fiji, Nafsiah Mboi, the Health Minister of Indonesia, Powes Parkop, the Governor of Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby, Dhlomo Sibongiseni, the Health Minister of KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa, and Robert Doyle, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, shared their experiences.

"It’s an honour to be hosting this inaugural cities initiative mayors’ meeting. This is an important moment because I believe the world’s cities—our cities—have a pivotal role to play in leading the HIV response … and fulfilling the vision of an HIV-free generation,” said the Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

Current data show that 15 countries account for 75% of global HIV infections, with the majority found in urban centres. It is estimated that 220 cities globally account for over a third of HIV prevalence. In the Asia and the Pacific region, 30 cities account for over a million people living with HIV.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners to maximize results for the AIDS response. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us onFacebook and Twitter.