UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years152In some countries,private drop-in clinicslike this one in Hanoi,Viet Nam, providecounselling andtreatment for sexuallytransmitted infections.UNAIDS/S.NooraniIn order to improve UN functioning, it was felt that, first, the UN’s own house should be inorder, and activities related to HIV in the UN System Workplace were initiated. For instance,UNAIDS prepared a staff survey on HIV awareness among staff, and in-country workshops forUN staff were organized to ensure that staff themselves were better informed, e.g. on theirrights and on the UN HIV/AIDS personnel policy.Another important change occurred in 2003, as the process of gathering surveillanceestimates became increasingly country owned and country based. Karen Stanecki, SeniorAdviser at UNAIDS’ Epidemic and Impact Monitoring Department, explained: “In the pasttwo rounds of the Global Report, we actually made a concerted effort to train country peopleresponsible for HIV surveillance on how to do national HIV estimates, so that they wouldfeel ownership of the estimates. In 2003 and in 2005, we conducted over a dozen regionalworkshops where we trained epidemiologists from over 150 countries on how to use theUNAIDS tools and methodologies recommended by our Reference Group. Our hope wasthat this would lead to country ownership of the estimates and that it would not be viewedas a Geneva-based process”.Stanecki and her colleagues also believe this process has improved their estimates becausethese are now based on data available in countries and more in-depth country knowledge.“As countries expand their own surveillance systems, they have more information to use inthis process and they have a better knowledge of the limitations of their data”.