UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 6Roger Salla Ntounga, now UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Ethiopia, who had workedwith the Programme in various capacities since the early years, noted a significant changein attitudes towards the UNAIDS Country Coordinators. In 2000, he went with the newCPA to a country where they met middle management in the government. About fiveyears later he went back to introduce the new UNAIDS Country Coordinator and “we metthe Ambassadors themselves, the Ministers”. So the new UNAIDS Country Coordinatorsimmediately started work at a very different level from their predecessors. “This is a reflectionof the credibility we have now”.151Bunmi Makinwa became UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Ethiopia in 2003, having beenHead of the Inter-Country Team for East and Southern Africa, based in South Africa, forthree years. He explained that Addis Ababa is the political hub of Africa, the seat of theAfrican Union and home of the Economic Commission for Africa “where the political horsetradingin Africa takes place”.Makinwa aimed to get AIDS integrated into that political hub in a way that would bepermanent “and we succeeded. AIDS is part of the agenda permanently of the Africanleaders now”. There is now an office in the African Union dedicated to work on theepidemic, and UNAIDS also put in place an annual review of the performance of Africancountries on AIDS. This review (based on the leaders’ declaration at Abuja in 2001 andtherefore giving some clear indicators) is carried out by the African Union with UNAIDS’support.In several countries, social mobilization officers were appointed as well as new monitoringand evaluation staff. The latter are essential to ensure that governments receive betterstrategic information in order to make decisions and to monitor progress and track theepidemic. There are now 41 monitoring and evaluation advisers operating in UNAIDScountry offices and Regional Support Teams, the largest force on monitoring and evaluationaround AIDS in the world and a major monitoring and evaluation resource for developmentin general.Improving United Nations functioning in countriesOther changes were made to improve the coordination and accountability of the UN systemat country level. Regional Directors of the Cosponsoring agencies now meet regularly toreview the performance of their country representatives. Sidibe stressed the importance ofthis ‘bridge’ between headquarters, region and country for the various agencies. The otherimportant change was to move from UNAIDS Inter-Country Teams, which had focusedmainly on advocacy according to the original mandate, to Regional Support Teams. Thisshift signified the progressive decentralization of UNAIDS operations at regional andcountry levels.