Feature story

Monitoring progress towards global HIV targets

11 November 2009

In a supplement of the Journal of AIDS’ December issue published yesterday, UNAIDS explores some of the current challenges to monitoring the progress towards global HIV targets.

The supplement, called Progress Towards Global HIV Targets: Challenges in Monitoring National Indicators, explores thematic, technical analysis of data and key findings derived from the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) reporting system.

The issue was guest co-edited by Dr Deborah Rugg, Chief Monitoring and Evaluation UNAIDS and covers issues such as human rights in the global response to HIV and estimating the level of HIV prevention coverage, as well as addressing the key question: Are we on course for reporting on the Millennium Development Goals in 2015?

In a time of ever more acute resource limitation, more and better studies are required that effectively evaluate whether programmes achieved their desired results, and whether those results lead to their intended outcomes.

Dr Deborah Rugg, Chief Monitoring and Evaluation UNAIDS

“In a time of ever more acute resource limitation, more and better studies are required that effectively evaluate whether programmes achieved their desired results, and whether those results lead to their intended outcomes,” said Dr Rugg.

The 2001 UNGASS Declaration set forth concrete, time-bound commitments to promote a comprehensive and effective global response to the epidemic. The UNAIDS Secretariat was subsequently given a mandate to develop an international monitoring system for national HIV responses in order to manage this reporting.

The resulting system has generated an unparalleled global body of evidence across the range of national HIV responses and key thematic areas.

The articles included in the supplement uses data and key findings derived from the UNGASS reporting system, combined with complimentary data from other sources, on the status of both the global HIV epidemic and the response.