UNDP Response to HIV/AIDS

UNDP’s priorities are to develop capacities of leaders at all levels of society to ensure that actions are brought to scale, mitigate the socio-economic impact of the epidemic and promote an enabling human rights environment that promotes and protects the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. Within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework UNDP also helps countries meet MDG 6 of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of the epidemic by 2015.

As a co-sponsor of UNAIDS, UNDP's global mandate is focused on addressing the unprecedented human development and human challenges of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In its areas of work, UNDP’s response is focused in three axes of intervention

1. HIV/AIDS and Human Development : giving choices HIV/AIDS affects people in their most productive years, and is uniquely devastating as it increases poverty and reverses human development achievements. In order to support countries to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on Human Development, UNDP promotes multi-sector responses that mainstream HIV/AIDS in national development plans, sector programmes and decentralized plans. In addition UNDP supports countries to generate enabling trade, health and intellectual property legislation for sustainable access to low-cost, quality AIDS medicines.

2. Governance of HIV/AIDS Responses : building consensus among all partners The effective governance of HIV/AIDS strategies is contingent on large-scale multi-sectoral planning, which provides the necessary frameworks for a coordinated response of a diverse range of partners. UNDP supports harmonization and alignment of UN system and donor assistance to national AIDS authorities, and provides implementation support for the “three ones” principles for Coordination of national AIDS responses. UNDP builds capacity for the development and implementation of HIV/AIDS strategies, and through the Resident Coordinator system, supports the integration of HIV/AIDS into UN Country Team common country programming processes, to increase effectiveness of programmes and minimize transaction costs.

3. An Enabling Human Rights and Gender Environment- protecting people’s rights, especially the rights of the most vulnerable Achieving gender equality and protecting the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS are essential for reducing vulnerability to HIV and halting the spread of the epidemic. UNDP supports countries in creating an enabling human rights environment to protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, women and vulnerable populations. This includes addressing stigma and discrimination, and gender relations that render women and girls vulnerable to infection, and promoting legislative and other measures to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights. UNDP actively supports the involvement of people living with HIV in the planning, implementation and evaluation of responses to HIV/AIDS.

The UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) in partnership with BDP and through the support of the HIV/AIDS Thematic Trust Fund developed its first-ever Regional Programme on HIV/AIDS in the Arab region to respond to HIV/AIDS at a critically important time for the region. The Arab region faces many high-risk factors and a closing window of opportunity to take truly preventative measures in the HIV/AIDS response. HARPAS was launched in October 2002 during a high-level workshop on leadership for an expanded response to HIV/AIDS, held in Sana’a Yemen. The workshop brought together UNDP Resident Representatives, Country Office Focal Points, National AIDS Programme Managers, UNAIDS staff and other HIV/AIDS experts from within and outside the Arab region. One of the clear outcomes of this meeting was a unified vision for addressing HIV/AIDS in the region and an unwavering commitment among partners to work more proactively together to prevent further spread of the disease and to ensure the region reverses the trend of increased HIV infection, AIDS stigma and related deaths.

The objective of the programme is to create heightened awareness and to build commitment and leadership in the HIV/AIDS response. In its second phase of programming, the regional strategy aims to continue implementing its series of high-priority, catalytic regional interventions using a multi-sectoral approach, building on the groundbreaking work already accomplished by HARPAS and its partners.

HARPAS has implemented a multisectoral approach in the HIV/AIDS response through key initiatives including the Religious Leaders Initiative, Private Sector Initiative, Legal Review Initiative, Arts and Media (A&M) Initiative, Regional Arab Network Against AIDS (RANAA), Greater Involvement of People Living with AIDS (GIPA) Initiative, Women’s Leadership Initiative, Sub-Regional Initiatives, as well as our dedication to reaching policy level leaders for a committed regional response. Today, the HARPAS response has started to fulfill our mission to create an enabling human rights environment, promote good governance and respond to HIV/AIDS as a crucial development and gender issue. The methods used to fulfill this mission have required addressing the underlying social, cultural, political and economic factors that create high risk and thus fuel the spread of HIV infection, related stigma and death due to AIDS via UNDP’s Leadership for Results (L4R) methodology. Through these key initiatives and our growing group of committed regional partners, HARPAS aims to leverage gains made at regional level, scaling up Country Level responses and meeting MDG #6 to end all new infections in the Arab region by 2015.