The IPU Advisory Group on HIV/AIDS met in Geneva on 24 and 25 September to discuss its strategic outlook and future activities. At the meeting the Group endorsed the nine priority areas defined in the Outcome Framework, 2009-2011, of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) as the frame of reference within which it would pursue its own activities.
It recommended that the IPU and UNAIDS develop a parliamentary programme to strengthen the existing partnership between the two organizations and enable the Group to help individual parliaments come to grips with difficult institutional and legislative challenges. The Advisory Group also decided to grant membership to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with a view to working closely with it on the development of its parliamentary activities.
The Advisory Group also discussed its involvement in two major international HIV/AIDS events taking place in 2010, the XVIII International AIDS Conference and the United Nations General Assembly’s High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. It urged UNAIDS to include parliaments in the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) reporting process, expressed support for the IPU’s efforts to get parliamentarians involved in the main programmes of these meetings and endorsed the suggestion to hold separate parliamentary events in conjunction with them.
The Advisory Group agreed that the agendas for future Geneva meetings should include consultations with different United Nations agencies and bodies in order to expand the role of parliamentarians in response to HIV/AIDS.
