Keeping universal access on the G8 agenda
28 March 2007
There are early indications that a number of G8 governments have agreed ahead of this year's G8 meeting in Germany to take their AIDS commitments further, says Alliance partner Stop AIDS Campaign.
The Stop AIDS Campaign is committed to keeping universal access to treatment on the agenda of this year's G8 meeting. Its work is part of a long-term plan to urge the G8 governments not only to make ambitious commitments on AIDS, but also to keep their promises and match them with increased resources and more substantial political attention.
At the G8 Summit in 2005, the UK Government led world leaders in committing to “develop and implement a package for HIV prevention, treatment and care, with the aim of as close as possible to universal access to treatment for all those who need it by 2010”. In June 2006, all UN member states further promised “universal access to comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support by 2010”. The 2007 G8 process, hosted by Germany, offers a critical opportunity to keep these promises.
There are four themes to this year's campaign: financing for universal access; strengthening health systems to deliver universal access; access to affordable medicines; and universal access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission. There is more detail about these themes in the Stop AIDS Campaign's G8 briefing, which the Alliance helped to shape.
Alliance secretariat staff will be promoting these themes over the coming months in public campaign events, at meetings with the UK Government's G8 advisers and, importantly, in conjunction with civil society campaigns in other G8 countries.
The Alliance is an active member of the Stop AIDS Campaign, an initiative that brings together over 80 UK-based HIV and development organisations. The Stop AIDS Campaign was one of the original campaigning groups that lobbied to get AIDS and universal access on the Gleneagles G8 agenda in 2005.
