UNGASS 2011

Thirty years into the AIDS epidemic, and 10 years since the landmark UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, the world will come together to review progress and chart the future course of the global AIDS response at the 2011 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS from 8–10 June 2011 in New York.

Member States are expected to adopt a new Declaration that will reaffirm current commitments and commit to actions to guide and sustain the global AIDS response.

Many organisations and networks are developing submissions and statements in the run-up to the meeting.

We will collect news items, statements and resources in this section.

Regular updates are also avaialble here on the UNAIDS website.

History

The following is found on the Actionaid website:

What is UNGASS?

Recognising that there was “no more time for half measures” in the global fight against HIV/AIDs, UN secretary general Kofi Anan called on ministers to  join a global alliance against the virus after the Millenium Development Summit in 2000.

A year later - in June 2001 - ministers from 189 nations came together for the first Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS).

There they recognised that the epidemic was a “global emergency and one of the most formidable challenges to human life and dignity.”

Ministers agreed to take a course of action involving 10 priorities – from prevention through equal treatement and to funding - before adopting a Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. 

The declaration set a number of targets which ministers agreed should be complete in three time frames. 2003, 2005 and 2010.

But at a special meeting two years later, in  2003, the UN warned that the targets set for 2005 would be missed if more money and effort was not put into the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In an accompaning report by UNAIDS it was found that only 1% of people in sub-Saharan Africa who need anti- retroviral drugs or ARVs were currently receiving them, that pregant women in heavily affected countries did not have access to information about mother - child infection and that discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS was widespread.

Another report in 2005 found that the epidemic continued to expand, with around 4.9 million new infections at the end of 2004 and more than 3 million deaths.

The UNGASS meeting, held between May 22 - June 2 will report on just how far progress has come since then.