A global consensus is emerging that accelerated progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and more efficient use of resources can be achieved by taking the AIDS response out of isolation and integrating it with efforts to achieve other health and development goals.
On 22 September, the last day of the UN MDG Summit in New York, UNAIDS will co-host the event ‘AIDS plus MDGs: Delivering results towards our shared commitments’ together with the Governments of China, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa.
Premier Wen Jiabao of China and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia will be joined by Nigeria’s and South Africa’s Ministers of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu and Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, respectively, to generate political commitment to leverage the AIDS response to achieve the MDGs. Representing the United Nations will be UN Deputy Secretary-General Dr Asha-Rose Migiro, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, and UNAIDS Executive Director Mr Michel Sidibé, who will chair the event.
“World leaders and UNAIDS are joining together to give the message that we must invest strategically to address multiple MDGs,” said Mr Sidibé. “Releasing the power, capacity and innovation of the AIDS movement may provide one of the best opportunities to ‘do the MDGs’ differently.”
The relationship between AIDS and the MDGs is reciprocal: investments in the AIDS repose advance all the MDGs and efforts to meet the eight Goals address the social drivers of the HIV epidemic. To find out more about AIDS and the MDG, read the UNAIDS report AIDS plus MDGs: synergies that serve people, a report prepared by the Government of Ethiopia and a UNAIDS case study on Rwanda.
