Today’s generation of young people is the largest in history, with 1.8 billion adolescents and youth making up one quarter of the world’s population. Young people have a critical role in ensuring that political momentum to achieve the end of the AIDS epidemic and to secure specific targets around sexual and reproductive health and rights in the post-2015 development agenda is sustained.

In order to mobilize young people to influence the post-2015 dialogue that will set the goals, targets and indicators of global development for the next 15 years, UNAIDS, in collaboration with the PACT for Social Transformation in the AIDS Response, has produced the ACT 2015! Advocacy strategy toolkit.

Developed in partnership with Restless Development, the toolkit is intended to support youth organizations to build national alliances and develop a national advocacy road map to engage with key decision-makers influential in the post-2015 negotiations. It provides background information about the Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda, as well as a timeline of critical events within the process of developing the new framework. With step-by-step information on how young people can develop their own advocacy strategy, including setting up advocacy priorities, selecting targets, making an effective advocacy case, developing activities and designing a road map, it shows how to conduct effective advocacy in the national context.

In the first phase of ACT! 2015, a youth-led initiative based on new forms of organizing using social media and online technology, young people around the world organized community dialogues through www.crowdoutaids.org to set advocacy priorities.

To find out more, please visit www.crowdoutaids.org.

Health ministers and representatives of multilateral, bilateral and philanthropic institutions and the private sector gathered on 21 May in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss health financing post-2015 in a meeting organized by the Center for Global Health and Diplomacy.

A wide array of topics, including good governance and accountability within financing for health, official development assistance, the role of the private sector, partnerships and the need to share a common vision, were discussed at the meeting, which was sponsored by the World Bank, the Swedish Government, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and UNAIDS.

Delivering the keynote speech, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé highlighted the importance of seeing health as an investment, not a cost, and emphasized the need to highlight results and to unite partners with a common vision to deliver results with impact.

Participants stressed the need to empower local governments to address the challenges of health and development in a changing global landscape and the role of technology in optimizing resources.

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High-level officials from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union (AU), along with selected ministers of health from both regions, met in Geneva, Switzerland, this week to explore the role of shared responsibility and the global solidarity agenda in ending the AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean. The dialogue, held on 20 May and convened by UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, examined the first steps in developing a Caribbean road map towards such shared responsibility.

In 2012, the African Union produced its own Roadmap on Shared Responsibility and Global Solidarity for AIDS, TB and Malaria Response in Africa, with technical assistance from UNAIDS, which built on the considerable progress the continent has made in transforming its response to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The AU Roadmap is based on three central pillars: more diversified, balanced and sustainable financing models; access to medicines, local production and regulatory harmonization; and leadership, governance and oversight for sustainability.

AU delegates at the Geneva meeting were able to share their wealth of experience on the processes, mechanisms and political support required to attain these goals, promote greater self-reliance and ensure the success of the road map. The meeting also facilitated further exchanges and links between countries of both regions regarding their HIV and health responses.

It emerged that there were major common challenges and opportunities facing the Caribbean and Africa in terms of health and development issues in the post-2015 context. These include equitable access to health services, social protection and human rights issues and, as incomes rise, an increasing lack of access to official development assistance, which has profound implications for sustainability. 

The meeting formally endorsed a CARICOM–AU–UNAIDS partnership to assist the development of the CARICOM road map. Initial steps will consist of gathering evidence to help define Caribbean-specific road map pillars and drawing up a schedule of meetings at the very highest technical and political levels.

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Despite the significant decline in new HIV infections among children since the launch in 2011 of the Global Plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive (Global Plan), there is a need for a renewed sense of urgency to reach the Global Plan targets.

This was the main outcome of the second ministerial progress review meeting of the Global Plan convened by UNAIDS and PEPFAR as a side event during the sixty-seventh World Health Assembly, taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 19 to 24 May.

The meeting brought together key partners working in the areas of HIV prevention, maternal health and child survival, including civil society representatives, donors and 16 ministerial delegations of the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global Plan aims to ensure that less than 5% of children born to women living with HIV become infected with the virus. This would represent a reduction of new HIV infections among children by 90% compared with 2009. Participants stressed the need to thoroughly and simultaneously pursue all four components of the internationally agreed strategy to achieve such a dramatic reduction in mother-to-child-transmission of HIV. These include, first of all, the prevention of HIV among women of childbearing age as well as the prevention of unintended pregnancies among women living with HIV. Furthermore, all HIV-positive pregnant women need access to the most effective antiretroviral medicines to prevent HIV transmission. Once the child is born, the mother and the infant as well as their families need to receive appropriate HIV treatment, care and support.

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Despite their economic and cultural diversities, the BRICS countries, an association of five major emerging national economies—Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa—are facing similar health-care challenges, including access to health services and medicines, growing health costs, infectious diseases, such as HIV and tuberculosis, and the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases.

In order to find solutions on how to provide health care to millions of people, in particular the most vulnerable, representatives from BRICS and other low- and middle-income countries met on 19 May in Geneva, on the sidelines of the sixty-seventh World Health Assembly.

The meeting, sponsored by WHO, UNAIDS, UNITAID and UNDP, focused on identifying strategies and initiatives to overcoming the bottlenecks to increasing access to pharmaceutical technologies. Participants analysed ways to sustain treatment programmes and the scaling-up of coverage, ensure competition within the pharmaceutical sector and exceptions to intellectual property rights related to public health concerns.

The BRICS countries have a long history of making use of policy options, such as compulsory licencing to find a better balance in managing intellectual property rights for public health. At the same time, the BRICS countries expressed a strong desire to collaborate to create favourable environments for fostering accessibility and enhancing the affordability of health products in BRICS and other low- and middle-income countries.

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On 18 May, thousands of people will take part in events around the world to support the thirty-first International AIDS Candlelight Memorial. Activities will range from small local vigils to national commemorations as people come together to light candles, march, perform, raise awareness and express solidarity with people living with and affected by HIV. People who have lost their lives to AIDS-related illnesses will also be remembered. 

The memorial, with the theme of “Let’s keep the light on HIV”, is coordinated by the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) and is spearheaded by a coalition of more than a thousand community organizations, such as networks of HIV-positive people, women’s and youth groups, businesses, academic institutions, faith-based organizations and the media.

The occasion will be used to further the overarching aims of ensuring that HIV stays firmly on the social and political agenda and that HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services are available to all who need them. The Memorial also provides an opportunity to challenge stigma and encourage activism and community dialogue, while highlighting the need to safeguard the advances that have been made in stemming the epidemic and to make greater progress in the future.

For more information on the memorial and planned events go to http://www.candlelightmemorial.org/

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Five countries across Asia have embraced the Protect the Goal campaign. An innovative partnership between UNAIDS, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is promoting a multicountry football-based HIV prevention programme in the region.

Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand have all committed to carrying out activities with the aim of helping to address HIV transmission among young people.

Myanmar kicked off its campaign in April with a football match at the national stadium featuring national stars Kyaw Ko Ko and Than Than Htwe from the Myanmar men’s and women’s national teams. Supported by the Myanmar National League and the Myanmar Football Federation, the match was played in front of thousands of fans. Through additional activities focusing on young people in schools, football clubs and other venues, the campaign will promote the importance of voluntary HIV testing and the elimination of stigma and discrimination towards people living with HIV.

The UNAIDS–AFC–ADB initiative will be implemented by the Myanmar National League and Football United, a flagship programme of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Cambodia has also initiated activities within the campaign. In March 2014, stars of the Phnom Penh Crown Football Club came out to support the Protect the Goal campaign and entertain fans in an event supported by the SALT Academy, the Football Federation of Cambodia and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines are all set to roll out key activities in the near future, with Malaysia officially launching its campaign on 16 May.

The UNAIDS–AFC–ADB initiative is part of the Protect the Goal campaign efforts to roll out activities and messages on HIV prevention in the lead up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, where there will be an event profiling the global campaign in Salvador, Bahia, on 9 June 2014.

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Two new mobile clinics donated by the Government of the Russian Federation will provide health services, including for HIV, to people living in remote areas of Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

The clinics, which were donated during the Fourth Conference on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, can operate in all climatic conditions and geographical areas and are equipped with the latest diagnostic capabilities. They can be used both on their own and in cooperation with other medical facilities, such as rural district hospitals.

The two clinics were purchased within the Regional Cooperation Programme for Technical Assistance for HIV and other Infectious Diseases in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was launched in 2013 by UNAIDS and the Federal Service on Customers’ Rights Protection and Human Well-being Surveillance (Rospotrebnadzor) funded by the Government of the Russian Federation. 

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Ivoirian football player Gervais Yao Kouassi, better known as Gervinho, has teamed up with UNAIDS to promote the Protect the Goal campaign and to support the UNAIDS vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.

Gervinho, who signed the Protect the Goal campaign pledge on 8 May in Rome, committed to supporting UNAIDS’ efforts for a generation free of HIV by spreading the message on the importance of HIV prevention, particularly among young people.

Harnessing the power of sport and culture, the Protect the Goal campaign has three specific objectives: to raise awareness of HIV, to encourage young people to commit to HIV prevention and to emphasize the need to ensure that the 15 million people eligible for life-saving antiretroviral treatment can access it by 2015.

Globally, an estimated 5.4 million adolescents and young people are living with HIV, and 1.8 million are eligible for HIV treatment. Millions of young people living with HIV do not know their HIV-positive status, and, every day, approximately 2 100 adolescents and young people become newly infected, which accounts for 36% of all new HIV infections globally.

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UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Luiz Loures met with civil society leaders on 07 May in New York at a strategic planning meeting cohosted by UNAIDS in collaboration with the Civil Society Working Group on AIDS in the Post-2015 Development Process.

The objective of the meeting was to identify strategies and synergies with the work of governments and civil society partners in order to secure bold targets towards reducing new HIV infections, discrimination and AIDS-related deaths.

Civil society activists emphasized that HIV must have a prominent place in the post-2015 development framework and that promoting and protecting the human rights of all people, ending stigma and discrimination, and promoting equality must be central principles of all post-2015 development goals. Dr Loures stressed the central role that advocates must play in setting the post-2015 agenda.

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