The landscape of the fight against AIDS has been transformed in the past 15 months since I last spoke here, on the eve of World Aids Day in 2004. Issues that were gathering momentum then have come to fruition, so I now look at 2005 as the ‘least bad’ year in the history of AIDS. It was a year when hope slowly took over from pure despair in many communities; things that seemed impossible even a few years ago started to become real in 2005.

This regional consultation is the culmination of a country-driven process to concretize three increasingly famous words – towards
universal access.

I am speaking today on the human rights of men who have sex with men and the UNAIDS perspective. Let me start by saying that UNAIDS does not have formal oversight of any human rights treaty, like UNICEF, but like any UN agency, UNAIDS is accountable for respecting and promoting the principles of the UN Charter. For the staff, the Standards of Conduct for the International Civil Service, paragraph 3, state that “The values that are enshrined in the United Nations organizations must also be those that guide international civil servants in all their actions: fundamental human rights, social justice, the dignity and worth of the human person and respect for the equal rights of men and women and of nations great and small.”

Special Summit of the African Union on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Special Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Abuja, 4th May

The aim today is to provide an

Keynote speech by Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director to the First Eastern European and Central Asian HIV/AIDS Conference, Moscow, 15 May 2005.

GCWA LEADERSHIP COUNCIL DINNER

Speech by Deborah Landey, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, at the Global Coalition on Women AIDS Leadership Council on 6 June 2006 in Canada.

Speech by Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director to the 18th Meeting of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, Geneva.