As part of the main drivers of the BAM Group of Companies, this being the umbrella company within which Informative Newspaper operates, alongside sister brands Finite Magazine, Finite Lifestyle Club, Bam Promotions and Twin Talk. Informative Newspaper takes particular interest in social issues and causes created to advance the development of young girls and women and their participation in the global space.
To advance and cement the organization’s support for women and young girls, the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights is today, through this issue introduced. Its purpose is to advance knowledge and create further awareness on developments surrounding the said community sector and to help audiences stay updated on such, further guiding means of both action and reaction to these developments.
This week we discuss: The 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS Birth registration pushes child
2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: On the fast track to accelerating the fight against HIV and to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030
The 2016 declaration, signed in June 2016, commits countries to work towards eradicating HIV by 2030.
Gaps in the Political Declaration
Civil society criticised the Declaration for its weakness the HIV-related needs of key
Further, the Declaration calls for laws, policies and practices that enable access to services
and help end stigma and discrimination, but does not explicitly call for the decriminalisation
of consensual adult sex or drug use. A civil society declaration urged the United Nations and
governments to endorse and follow ten steps to end the AIDS epidemicpopulations. Many groups felt that the
Declaration failed to adequately address the concerns Parliamentarians have a role to play in holding governments accountable for the promises they have made in the Declaration. They can help ensure that progress reports are properly prepared and that civil society, especially people living with HIV and key populations, are meaningfully involved in the process. Global commitments in the 2016 Political Declaration:
Countries re-committed to the following 2020 targets:
o Reduce new HIV infections to less than 500 000 per annum by 2020;
o Reduce AIDS-related deaths to less than 500 000 per annum by 2020; and
o Eliminate stigma and discrimination.
In addition, countries committed to 10 goals to eradicate HIV by 2030 and should report to UNAIDS on progress to achieve these:
- Ensure that 30 million people have access to ART by 2020;
- Eliminate new infections amongst children by 2020 and ensure that 1.6 million children have access to ART by 2018;
- Ensure access to combination prevention options, including PrEP, voluntary medical male circumcision, harm
reduction and condoms, to at least 90% of people by 2020, especially young women and adolescent girls in highprevalence countries and key populations – gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers and their clients, people who inject drugs and prisoners;
- Eliminate gender inequalities and end all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls, people living with HIV and key populations by 2020;
- Ensure that 90% of young people have the skills, knowledge and capacity to protect themselves from HIV and have access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2020, in order to reduce the number of new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women to below 100 000 per year;
- Ensure that 75% of people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV benefit from HIV-sensitive social protection by 2020;
- Ensure that at least 30% of all service delivery is community-led by 2020;
- Ensure that HIV investments increase to US$26 billion by 2020, including a quarter for HI prevention and 6% for social enablers;
- Empower people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV to know their rights and to access justice and legal services to prevent and challenge violations of human rights; and
- Commit to taking AIDS out of isolation through people-centred systems to improve universal health coverage, including treatment for TB, cervical cancer and hepatitis B and C.
Regional commitments for East and Southern Africa: 2020
- Reduce the number of new HIV infections in adults and young people to 210 000;
- Reduce the number of new HIV infections amongst children to 9 400;
- Increase the number of people on treatment to 14.1 million; and
- Increase the number of children on treatment to 690 000.most a
Checklist for parliamentarians on developing the country progress reports on the
implementation of the 2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS:
o Does your country provide an Annual Country Progress report to UNAIDS?
o Do you know which government department is responsible for preparing the report?
o Do you know the timing for the report?
o Does parliament participate in the preparation of the Country Progress Report?
o Is there a parliamentary focal point on HIV? Does it have the necessary expertise and staffing to participate in the preparation of the Country Progress Report?
o Do other parliamentary committees such as those on women, health and children, participate in the preparation of the report?
o If your government does not prepare or regularly prepare a Country Progress Report, can parliament encourage it to do so?
o What role does parliament play in engaging civil society in the preparation of the Annual country progress report?
o Does parliament have effective partnerships with key populations and people living with HIV, and is it able to ensure that their voices are included in the preparation of the country progress report?
o Does parliament have access to the necessary expertise (clinicians, public health experts,
economists, civil society) to seek advice on government programmes and responses?
Next we discuss: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Goals 3 and 5