And calls on Member States to honour their commitment towards agreed HIV targets and goals
GENEVA, 1 July 2013—At its 32nd meeting, the Board of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) announced its commitment to lay the foundations to end the AIDS epidemic. It added that this commitment included realizing UNAIDS vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero-AIDS related deaths.
The governing body of UNAIDS––the Programme Coordinating Board—concluded its three-day meeting in Geneva calling on UNAIDS to take a prominent leadership and advocacy role in defining the role of the AIDS response in the post-2015 agenda. The board stressed that this should go beyond health, and include areas such as inequality, gender, education, governance and on building effective partnerships.
“The goal of ending the AIDS epidemic should be integrated with the imperative to sustain health and ensure quality of life for billions of people,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “This requires us to develop new leadership and new strategies to advance the future AIDS response post-2015.”
The Board also called on United Nations Member States to honour their commitments towards agreed targets and goals and to sustain and accelerate efforts towards achieving the HIV and health related Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). The Board also approved the 2014-15 Core Budget of the UNAIDS Secretariat and the 11 Cosponsoring organizations at US$ 485 million for the biennium.
During the meeting, Ms Amina Mohammed, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Post-2015 Development Planning spoke on leadership in the AIDS response. “You’ve had so much success on the MDG agenda; it’s the one thing we use to show that we can complete an agenda that’s pretty tough,” she said speaking about the response to HIV. “It’s the legitimacy we use to address the post-2015 agenda.”
The members of the Board gathered in Geneva just ahead of the first meeting of the UNAIDS and Lancet Commission: From AIDS to Sustainable Health, which took place on 28 and 29 June in Lilongwe, Malawi. The Commission has been established up to catalyse expertise and political momentum to shape the debate on the future of global health and accelerate progress towards the end of AIDS.
The Programme Coordinating Board meeting—chaired by India, with Australia as vice-chair and Congo as rapporteur—was attended by participants and observers from UN Member States, international organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations. The UNAIDS Executive Director’s report to the Board, decisions, recommendations and conclusions from the meeting can be found at: unaids.org.
