GENEVA, 1 July 2016—At its 38th meeting, the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board has stressed the need for accelerated action, increased investment, intensified partnerships and innovation in community-led service delivery to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
The meeting took place just weeks after the adoption by United Nations Member States of a new Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, which called on countries to Fast-Track their response to HIV over the coming years to reach a set of measurable targets by 2020. Achieving these targets is critical to putting the world on course to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
In his opening address, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, described the Political Declaration agreed in New York as bold, ambitious, forward-looking and balanced. He said success in reaching the Political Declaration’s targets required an inclusive approach that left no one behind, respect for everyone’s right to access quality sexual and reproductive health and rights, innovative and appropriate implementation of programmes and services to meet the needs of variously affected regions and key populations and increased and front-loaded investments for the AIDS response.
“The commitment to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 must be underpinned by the full respect for people’s human rights, including their access to quality sexual and reproductive health and rights,” said Mr Sidibé. “The involvement of people living with and affected by the epidemic is essential in implementing an effective and fully funded response rooted in the community and in ensuring a strong interface between service providers and people most affected by HIV.”
The Board also approved a revised Unified Budget, Results and Accountability Framework (UBRAF) for 2016–2021 and emphasized the importance of the Joint Programme in translating the UNAIDS 2016–2021 Strategy into action at the national, regional and global levels. However, there remains a shortfall of 30% in 2016 between funding commitments made to date and the resources required to fully implement the Strategy in support of people living with or affected by HIV. The Board encouraged donor governments to make multi-year contributions towards the 2016–2021 UBRAF and urged UNAIDS to continue expanding its donor base. During the meeting, the United States of America announced it intended to extend its agreement with UNAIDS for an additional five years, and as part of this extension, intended to further its funding collaboration with UNAIDS.
During the dedicated thematic day, the Board further explored the key role of communities in ending AIDS by 2030, with governments urged to leverage the skills, knowledge and experience of civil society to maximize impact. There was broad consensus that there would be no end to the AIDS epidemic by 2030 without sustained and intensified investment in community-led responses to the epidemic in regions and among groups of people most affected, including sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender people and prisoners.
Representatives of Member States, international organizations, civil society and nongovernmental organizations attended the meeting, which was chaired by Switzerland. Ghana served as Vice-Chair and Ecuador as Rapporteur.
The UNAIDS Executive Director’s report to the Board and the Board’s decisions can be found at unaids.org.
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 towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
