UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years202Every country’s UN Joint Programme on AIDS should include a defined UN Technical SupportPlan with a clear set of deliverables and detailed collective and individual accountability ofthe UN Country Team to enhance national responses to AIDS.The directive also reflected the agreements made in August 2005 on the division oflabour among UN agencies, funds and programmes. This agreement identified individualCosponsors or the UNAIDS Secretariat as the Lead Organization within a particular UNAIDStechnical support area, that would act as the single entry point for government and otherstakeholders asking for UN support. This was another step on the road to coordinating UNsupport in countries.Although the division of labour is not fully activated in all countries, or even at global level, itwas, according to Piot, “… an amazing agreement and shows the real progress UNAIDS hasmade. At the beginning, in 1996, I would have thought it was possible because it seemedthe obvious action to take, and I didn’t know what I know now about how agencies worktogether. But five years ago I would have thought such an agreement was impossible”. Thus,as UNAIDS approached the end of its first decade, some of the early challenges had beenmet but many more were yet to be overcome.