Community involvement and human rights an Alliance priority at UNGASS
10 May 2006
Community involvement in securing access to HIV prevention, care and treatment, and the challenges that human rights violations including stigma and discrimination present to realising universal access are the key issues that the Alliance will be addressing in the lead up to a forthcoming United Nations meeting.
From 30 May–2 June 2006 the United Nations will convene in New York to review the global progress made in implementing the commitments which came out of the 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) and to agree a new plan for securing universal access.
The UNGASS meeting is an auspicious moment to reinforce the importance of meeting the original commitments, while the G8 agreement to secure universal access by 2010 poses an unparalleled opportunity to scale up the provision of treatment and prevention services. The Alliance is working to influence the policy outcomes of both of these processes in a variety of ways.
Alliance programme representatives from Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa will travel to New York to encourage national governments and others from their region to support interventions that provide protection and support around stigma and discrimination, and to call for a global human rights action plan.
The delegation will also be calling on global civil society to hold on the idea of a global treatment target, highlighting the need for national targets to ensure access to services for populations key to the epidemic, calling for increased access to counselling and testing and calling for the inclusion of human rights in national plans.
Participation in universal access steering committee meetings
A Global Steering Committee, co-chaired by UNAIDS and the UK’s Department for International Development, has also been established to explore solutions to the common obstacles to achieving universal access. The Alliance is being represented on the committee by Anandi Yuvaraj from Alliance India, and other Alliance members have participated in the meetings.
A document identifying what universal access means for civil society will be the focus of the Alliance’s policy work at these meetings. Alliance linking organisations, country offices and partners have all fed into the document, sharing their experiences and insights on the opportunities and barriers to realising access to prevention, treatment and care in their countries.
UNGASS and the UK government
A critique of the UK Government’s performance on AIDS under the UNGASS commitments was presented by Alliance Senior Policy Advisor Susie McLean on behalf of UK HIV NGOs at the House of Commons at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS. It was accompanied by a call for a cross-Whitehall high level National AIDS Committee to provide leadership and policy coherence on AIDS in the UK. This call was met with some support by Government officials, and will be pursued by the Alliance, along with other UK NGOs.
For more information about UNGASS and the Universal Access process, contact Susie McLean, Senior Policy Advisor: Care & Impact Mitigation.
A special issue of The Loop, focusing on UNGASS and universal access will shortly be available.
