Statement of commitment to step up action towards ending AIDS, eliminate social injustice and reach the women and girls being left behind

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), where 179 governments adopted a landmark Programme of Action. The Programme of Action unequivocally affirmed reproductive rights as human rights, fundamental to the empowerment of women and girls and to achieving gender equality and sustainable development more broadly.

From 12 to 14 November, the governments of Kenya and Denmark, together with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), are co-convening the Nairobi Summit to mobilize the political will and financial commitments needed to finally and fully implement the Programme of Action.

During the conference, UNAIDS will be reinforcing the importance of HIV prevention, treatment and care as integral to the ICPD agenda. UNAIDS will also be advocating for sexual and reproductive health services for all and access to services that work for and address the needs of adolescent girls and young women.

On the opening day of the conference, the Executive Director of UNAIDS Winnie Byanyima made a statement of commitment on behalf of the UNAIDS Secretariat to step up action towards ending AIDS, eliminate social injustice and reach the women and girls being left behind.

“UNAIDS commits, at the highest levels, in collaboration with our sister entities of the UNAIDS Joint Programme and wider UN family, to drive decisive political will on HIV prevention and young women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Through our collective support to national governments, and with the active participation of civil society and communities of women and young people, in all their diversity, in our decision-making. Specifically in the African continent, where young women are hardest hit by the epidemic, we commit to pursue a strategic initiative with UNFPA and UN Women to remove the barriers and harmful social norms which result in their higher vulnerability to HIV.”

By the end of 2020, the GPC partnership will support countries to:

• Remove parental consent laws for adolescents to access sexual and reproductive health services, including for contraception and HIV testing, prevention and treatment, in 4 countries of sub-Saharan Africa: Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, and Zambia. Such laws are a threat to public health, and only cause grave harm to young people.
• Ensure access by adolescent girls and young women to integrated sexual and reproductive health information, education and services in areas with extremely high HIV in 7 countries– Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Globally, UNAIDS commits to adolescents and young people, and all communities hardest-hit by the HIV epidemic, to:

• Fully leverage the leadership and resources of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis to best respond to the needs and demands of adolescent girls and young women and other key populations living with or at high risk of HIV, in all their diversity—with emphasis on action for prevention at local and grassroots levels; alongside approaches that tackle poverty, gender discrimination and gender-based violence in their lives.
• Galvanize political will to end social injustice in 30 countries from across regions through the Global Partnership for Action to Eliminate All Forms of HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination.
• Finally, the UNAIDS Secretariat will develop and deliver a simplified methodology to assist countries in collecting reliable data on key populations to improve planning and implementation of HIV prevention, treatment and support services, alongside protection of their human rights, safety and dignity—communities so pervasively marginalized and discriminated against that some governments refuse to acknowledge they even exist, much less counted, as rightful citizens of their countries.

Original source: UNAIDS
Published on 12 November 2019