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Written by Rajendra Man Banepali
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Wednesday, 24 September 2008 |
What is UNAIDS?
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the epidemic. UNAIDS' mission is to lead, strengthen and support an expanded response to HIV and AIDS that includes preventing transmission of HIV, providing care and support to those already living with the virus, reducing the vulnerability of individuals and communities to HIV and alleviating the impact of the epidemic.
UNAIDS: An exceptional response to AIDS
UNAIDS supports a more effective, comprehensive and coordinated global response to AIDS by providing: - Leadership and advocacy for effective action on the epidemic
- Strategic information and technical support to guide efforts against AIDS worldwide
- Tracking, monitoring and evaluation of the epidemic and of responses to it
- Civil society engagement and the development of strategic partnerships
- Mobilization of resources to support an effective response
Global Policies and Priorities
UNAIDS' country-level actions from 2003 to 2005 are guided by these five strategic objectives: - Strategic Objective 1: To empower national leadership for an effective response at country level.
UNAIDS works to keep AIDS at the top of global and national agendas, promoting effective leadership and intensifying commitment at all levels. The Joint Programme assists governments in the development and implementation of detailed action plans to fight AIDS with a wide variety of actors and supports government-led national AIDS councils.
- Strategic Objective 2: To mobilize and empower country-level public, private and civil society partnerships
UNAIDS works with a broad array of actors - governments throughout the world, non-governmental organizations, researchers and technical experts, and leaders from business, religion and the arts. UNAIDS supports civil society empowerment for social dialogue, policy development and implementation.
- Strategic Objective 3: To promote and strengthen country management of strategic information
The Joint Programme works to ensure that national responses to AIDS and funding decisions by donors are based on timely, accurate information and on the best available scientific evidence. UNAIDS supports countries in identifying, documenting, promoting and utilizing country-specific best practices. Moreover, UNAIDS generates strategic information through country progress reports and regional trend analysis.
- Strategic Objective 4: To build capacities to track, monitor and evaluate country responses
The Joint Programme is the world's leading resource for epidemiological data on HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS is spearheading efforts to monitor and report on the world's progress in implementing the goals set forth in the UN General Assembly's Declaration of Commitments on HIV/AIDS.
- Strategic Objective 5: To facilitate access to technical and financial resources at country level
UNAIDS works to integrate and mainstream HIV/AIDS into relevant development frameworks, it supports countries to leverage financial resources and it provides technical support to its partners. UNAIDS is the prime resource for the analysis of AIDS resource needs and utilization. A UNAIDS Cosponsor, the World Bank is one of the largest single providers of financial assistance for AIDS programmes in developing countries. Efforts by the Secretariat and Cosponsors were critical to the timely establishment in December 2002 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as a new financial mechanism to leverage additional resources for AIDS.
Global Level of Assistance (in 2005)
The UNAIDS unified budget and workplan includes all the global and regional-level HIV/AIDS-related activities of the ten UNAIDS Cosponsors and the UNAIDS Secretariat. The budget is intended to facilitate an expanded response of the UN system and it has to be noted that it does not include the country level activities of the Cosponsors. For 2004-2005, the Programme Coordinating Board approved USD 250.5 million as the UNAIDS unified core budget. Cosponsors are expected to contribute USD 111 million for HIV/AIDS related activities at global and regional levels from their own resources.
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