Steve Mmapaseka Letskie speaking at the UN Opinion Leaders Dialogue on what it will take to end AIDS. Photo: UN
The week of activities connected to the UN high level meeting on ending AIDS was a week of dramatic contrasts. On Wednesday 7 June, the formal opening of the meeting, Member States at the high level meeting (HLM) adopted an underwhelming Political Declaration on Ending AIDS. The title far more forward-looking than the words it contains.
As I wrote in my article published on openDemocracy last week, the meeting was a study in exclusion and misrepresentation of many of the characteristics of HIV epidemics. While the declaration itself fell victim to UN political ping-ponging, the gap between the relative weakness of the commitments and the level of need was repeatedly noted by Member States and civil society alike, as well the visible presence of the very groups who were barely mentioned in the declaration. The urgency of greater attention to “key populations” (i.e. gay and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, drug users and prisoners) was a fortunately common topic in both side event, formal panels and in many Members States formal statements.
