“Global Crisis – Global Action”
The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS closed on Wednesday 27 June 2001 with the adoption of a Declaration which sets out a global framework for responding to AIDS, including ambitious targets for further action.
As widely reported, an earlier draft of the Declaration which referred to the UNAIDS Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, and which specifically named men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers and injecting drug users as vulnerable groups in need of protection, was amended to remove these references at the insistence of a small group of Islamic states, supported by the US government.
Nonetheless, the Declaration contains strong language in support of universal human rights and challenging gender inequality in support of women and girls. The need for people living with HIV/AIDS to be actively involved in responding to the epidemic is clearly recognised. While giving HIV prevention the highest priority, the Declaration recognises that “care, support and treatment” are necessary for HIV prevention strategies to be sustained and successful.
Research and Development
A section on research and development amounts to a strong endorsement of strategies advocated by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and others “for the development of sustainable and affordable prevention technologies, such as vaccines and microbicides, and [to] encourage the proactive preparation of financial and logistic plans to facilitate rapid access to vaccines when they become available” (para 56).
Call for Resources
Many of the targets depend on countries drawing up and implementing national plans. It is recognised that this cannot happen without substantial additional resources for the worst-affected countries, including “civil society” organisations as well as their governments, and calls for these to be made available through international debt relief and through an overall increase in “official development assistance”. In support of the global HIV/AIDS and health fund, the Declaration also calls for UNAIDS to launch a “worldwide fund-raising campaign aimed at the general public as well as the private sector” by 2002.
Outcome Targets
There are three outcome targets which directly relate to levels of HIV transmission:
“By 2003, establish time-bound national targets to achieve the internationally agreed global prevention goal to reduce by 2005 HIV prevalence among young men and women aged 15 to 24 in the most affected countries by 25 per cent and by 25 per cent globally by 2010 …” (para 47)
“By 2003, implement universal precautions in health-care settings to prevent transmission of HIV infection.” (para 51)
“By 2005, reduce the proportion of infants infected with HIV by 20 per cent, and by 50 per cent by 2010, by: ensuring that 80 per cent of pregnant women accessing antenatal care have information, counselling and other HIV prevention services available to them, increasing the availability of and by providing access for HIV-infected women and babies to effective treatment to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV, as well as through effective interventions for HIV-infected women, including voluntary and confidential counselling and testing, access to treatment, especially anti-retroviral therapy and, where appropriate, breast milk substitutes and the provision of a continuum of care.” (para 54)
Monitoring
The Declaration does make specific proposals for monitoring progress towards achieving its targets. These include allocating “sufficient time and at least one full day of the annual [UN] General Assembly session to review and debate a report of the Secretary-General on progress achieved in realizing the commitments set out in this Declaration, with a view to identifying problems and constraints and making recommendations on action needed to make further progress”.
The full text of the Declaration is now available