2010 UNGASS: Latin America is gearing up

Some Latin American countries have already begun writing their 2010 UNGASS. Peru and Nicaragua have consulted with stakeholders, looking to strike up dialogues with different parties in their countries interested in the HIV response.

In adopting the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, Member States committed themselves to regularly report to the United Nations General Assembly on the progress made in their country. UNAIDS, likewise, is responsible for developing the process, receiving the reports, and periodically writing its own for the general assembly.

To assist countries prepare and submit their 2010 progress reports, UNAIDS has published its New UNGASS Guidelines on Construction of Core Indicators for 2010 reporting.

http://data.unaids.org/pub/Manual/2009/jc1676_Core_Indicators_2009_es.pdf

The new guidelines provide information on the composition of core indicators for reporting, including the purpose of the indicator, methods of measurement, and a summary interpretation of the indicator. The guidelines also recommend consistency of information for accurate global progress analysis.

At country level, the progress reports are used to review national strategic plans and to inform programmatic decisions and resource mobilization efforts such as the development of proposals for the Global Fund. Furthermore, country reports also enable open discussion and assessment of progress between stakeholders engaged in the national AIDS responses and help countries identify their gaps and weaknesses regarding data monitoring and evaluation.

A number of changes have been made to the reporting process. Amongst these are the new reporting deadline of March 31^st 2010, and the development of a system that allows on-line submission of reports through the UNGASS web site. It is anticipated that these two changes will allow for more rigorous data analysis at country level prior to submission and will streamline the cleaning and reconciliation of all data received. (*)

Countries in our region have started work on drafting these reports. Nicaragua intends on using its National HIV and AIDS Congress for analyzing existing gaps and commitments in light of the submission of the 2010 UNGASS report.

UNAIDS in Peru also held the first meeting in July in Lima with different stakeholders in order to encourage civil society participation and dialogue for a more solid UNGASS country report.

It is important to remember that UNGASS report preparation:

        Will contribute to strengthening the national response through a human rights, multi sector, and inter-institutional focus as well as with a gender and generational perspective.

        Will contribute to strengthening stakeholder commitment to the national response by acknowledging HIV is a human development problem and therefore requires a comprehensive and integrating approach.

        Will open up integration of other important and influential national stakeholders in the country’s HIV response who are otherwise not part of it.

The UNGASS is also an opportunity to view national response progress and commitments to halting the epidemic as well as to guarantee all stakeholders are positioning themselves better and the national response is comprehensive and integrating.

Civil society participation is paramount, especially community members who take part in this process. That is the only way for the report to reflect the real situation of the country. Consequently, we are asking all our readers to contact their local UNAIDS offices and other related stakeholders and begin the 2010 UNGASS preparation process.

That the world is informed of the progress and the unmet needs is vitally important so we can scale up actions and reach MDG 6, target 6a: “have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.”

(*) 2010 UNGASS data taken from: www.unaids.org

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