On 8 April, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, convened an informal session to brief United Nations Member States on the 2016 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, which will take place in New York, United States of America, from 8 to 10 June 2016.
During the session, the Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS, Jan Beagle, presented the United Nations Secretary-General’s report, On the Fast-Track to end the AIDS epidemic. The report highlights that ending the AIDS epidemic is possible by 2030, but only if a Fast-Track approach is taken over the next five years. United Nations Member States welcomed the report and expressed strong support for efforts to Fast-Track the response and end the AIDS epidemic as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The session was presided over by the President of the General Assembly and the two co-facilitators of the High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS—Patricia Mwaba Kasese-Bota, Permanent Representative of Zambia to the United Nations, and Jürg Lauber, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations.
Representatives of 115 Member States attended the session, many at ambassadorial level. The participants highlighted the need to adopt a bold Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, stating that it would be essential to enabling a Fast-Track approach.
The President of the General Assembly also briefed Member States on the Informal Interactive Civil Society Hearing, which took place on 6 April, and called on Member States to extend full support to civil society participation at the High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. He also stressed that the meeting provided a critical opportunity to end the AIDS epidemic in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Dr Kasese-Bota closed the meeting by noting that she and her fellow co-facilitator are extremely encouraged by Member States’ expressions of support. Feedback from this meeting and from the civil society hearing will be used to inform the zero draft of the United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS.
