The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé to discuss UNAIDS’ plans to further expand its focus on youth and HIV. The meeting was held on the side-lines of the 67th United Nations General Assembly taking place in New York from 10-11 June 2013.
The UN Secretary-General, through his five-year action agenda presented in January 2012, tasked the UN system to address the needs of the largest generation of young people the world has ever known. In support, UNAIDS developed its youth programme, which aims to increase youth leadership, ownership, and mobilization in the AIDS response at the country, regional, and global level by 2015 and beyond.
The programme was developed using social media and crowdsourcing technology, and enabled some 5 000 young people to participate in the processes. Based on this model, UNAIDS is now supporting a community dialogue for social change to inspire a new wave of social action in the AIDS response as well as mobilize the youth constituency in the lead up to the post-2015 negotiations. The dialogue will start in November leading up to World AIDS Day.
At the meeting, UNAIDS also shared the outcomes of the recent strategy meeting where youth organizations formed a pact for collaboration for social transformation in the AIDS response. Young participants identified five key priorities for the movement including ensuring HIV remains a priority in the post-2015 development framework.
