NGO Meeting on the EU's Response to the Global AIDS Epidemic
01 July 2004
On 1 July 2004, Stop AIDS Alliance, Brussels, hosted its second annual NGO meeting on the European Union’s response to HIV/AIDS. The aim of the meeting was to understand how NGOs, carrying out advocacy work on global HIV/AIDS issues with the EU, could better work together during the next year and a half. The next three EU Presidencies will be held by the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the UK so representatives from these governments spoke about their plans for this period and how they intend to ensure consistency in policy. They were followed by Dr Lieve Fransen of the European Commission who explained how their aims fitted with existing priorities and programming. In a closed session in the afternoon, NGO participants planned how they would work on issues omitted from the Presidency and Commission plans and discussed how they could communicate and co-ordinate their actions more effectively. They were guided in their discussions by presentations from NGO colleagues from Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK who are working in their respective countries to guide their governments’ time in the Presidencies.
During the meeting the Commission announced that they would like Stop AIDS Alliance to manage civil society input into the amendment of the Programme for Action on AIDS, TB and Malaria which is the main policy framework for HIV/AIDS work used by the EU.
