Translating the UNGASS Declaration into Action

UNAIDS

Just over three months after the member countries of the United Nations General Assembly signed the UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, discussions are focusing on how to put its words into action in the Asia Pacific region. The declaration maps out a blueprint for global action against the epidemic, including specific targets set for 2003, 2005 and 2010. Governments and civil society, including people living with HIV, are working together to reach those goals, but implementing the hundred or so carefully crafted paragraphs that comprise the declaration is taking longer than some had hoped. As a one of the most important UN bodies in the region, for example, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, for example, is helping governments turn the UNGASS commitments into plans and concrete programs. In signing the declaration, UN Member States called for "periodic reviews" of the progress achieved in realising their commitments, identifying problems and obstacles and barriers to progress. The declaration calls for involvement of all sections of society in this follow-up phase.

During the New York UNGASS preparations earlier in the year, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, Chair of the Malaysian 41 AIDS Council, placed special emphasis on the Asia Pacific region in her address to the UN. During the discussions this week on the UNGASS follow-up, delegates reiterated the need to make sure that, within the global response, the Asian epidemic is not obscured by the drastic situation in Africa. The declaration in June called for between seven and ten billion US dollars per year to underwrite the targets and commitments set out in the declaration - some three months later, only one-and-a-half billion dollars have actually been mobilised. Fears were raised that despite the numbers of people infected with HIV and dying from AIDS-related conditions every day, the recent terrorist attacks in the United States might move HIV/AIDS down the broader international agenda. In response to a question on how to mobilise the political will needed to tackle the epidemic, the Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia, reflected on the changing attitudes to overseas development aid within the political framework in Australia - as an example of the barriers faced in all countries. The current ICAAP is the first major international AIDS conference to take place since the UNGASS meeting.