H.E. Hifikepunye Pohamba, President of the Republic of Namibia, addresses attendees at the opening of the 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting in Windhoek, Namibia on June 10, 2009. Credit: Lukas Amakali.

From June 10-14, more than 1,500 implementers from around the world will gather in Windhoek to share best practices and lessons learned during the implementation of multi-sectoral AIDS programs with a focus on optimizing the impact of prevention, treatment and care programs; enhancing program quality; promoting coordination among partners; and encouraging innovative responses.

The 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers' Meeting will be hosted by the Government of Namibia, and co-sponsored by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; UNAIDS; UNICEF; the World Bank; the World Health Organization; and the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

“With universal access as the overarching goal of the meeting, I hope that we will pay particular attention to the urgent need to strengthen HIV prevention efforts,” said Paul De Lay, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Programme, a.i., who will address participants at the opening of 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting.

The conference theme is “Optimizing the Response: Partnerships for Sustainability.” Reflecting this theme, presentations will focus on what program implementers are doing to meet the challenges affecting the scale-up of HIV prevention, treatment and care. The meeting’s six research tracks cut across all subject matter areas of AIDS programming and include:

1. Responding to challenges in HIV prevention;
2. Women and children;
3. Effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support programmes for men who have sex with men, drug-users, people in prisons, and people in sex work;
4. Evolving challenges in treatment, laboratory, care and support services;
5. Performance-based programming and systems-strengthening; and
6. Cross-cutting issues.

To learn more about the 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting, please visit www.hivimplementers.org