Stocktaking of the UN’s 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, and deliberations with civil society organisations, government representatives, NGOs and other players on a wide range of HIV/AIDS issues is the focus of a two-day high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York

President of the UN General Assembly, Srgjan Kerim, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and several heads of State and over 80 ministers, senior officials, representatives of international organisations and civil society will meet to review progress towards the targets agreed in the UN's 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, on June 10-11, 2008, at the UN headquarters in New York.

The UN secretary-general will present his report on the progress made and challenges that remain in the global fight against HIV and AIDS.

The report is based on 147 national reports submitted to UNAIDS at the end of January 2008. Leaders from government, international organisations and civil society will

review the return on the substantial investments made over the past years; outline solutions and policies needed to meet the agreed targets, including universal access to prevention and treatment by 2010; urge political leaders to live up to their promise on the targets; explore bold, innovative ways to meet the special needs of women and girls; mobilise resources and ensure that money gathered works by investing in evidence-informed programmes.

There will be an informal interactive civil society hearing on June 10, to provide an opportunity for an exchange of views between civil society (including the private sector), member states and observers on various issues, with a particular focus on key priority issues for civil society in achieving universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.

Five thematic panel discussions will be held. The subjects of the panel discussions are:

Panel 1: How do we build on results achieved and speed up progress towards universal access by 2010 -- moving on to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015? The panel will take stock of results and focus on remaining gaps and key decisions that need to be taken, along with actions at country, regional and global levels.

Panel 2: The challenges of providing leadership and political support in countries with concentrated epidemics . The panel will focus on drivers of the epidemic, human rights concerns, and how to reach stigmatised, hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations. Specific actions that are needed to overcome socio-economic barriers and other obstacles to access prevention, treatment, care and support.

Panel 3: Making the response to AIDS work for women and girls: gender equality and AIDS . The panel will review findings from country reports on the progress, or lack thereof, with regard to the feminisation of the epidemic and gender equality, barriers and proposed actions.

Panel 4: AIDS: A multi-generational challenge -- providing a robust and long-term response. The panel will examine critical linkages between the response to AIDS and long-term development, strengthening of health systems, social protection, scientific innovation and the lethal combination of HIV and tuberculosis. The UN special envoy to stop TB will present the outcome of the HIV-TB Global Leaders Forum.

Panel 5: Resources and universal access: opportunities and limitations. The panel will examine aspects of financing in the response to AIDS, including sources of funding, resource allocation and spending, “making the money work”, accountability and predictable and multi-year funding. How sustainable funding can be assured at the country level, for the long-term.

There will also be several side events that will discuss issues such as barriers in educating young people about sex and HIV, success stories in accelerating the scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission, parliamentary action on AIDS, and how to find sustainable solutions for universal access to affordable HIV/AIDS diagnostics and treatment.

Source: http://www.un.org/ga/aidsmeeting2008/ , June 2008