UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years20But the report also criticized the ‘inefficiency of coordination between different UNagencies’, noting that ‘UN agencies have not systematically charted information orcoordinated the development of their AIDS policies and programmes’ and, at countrylevel, ‘duplication of effort and territorial rivalries threaten to weaken the global responseto AIDS’. Some UN agencies had developed unilateral programmes and activities thatduplicated those of GPA and other agencies.Various possible structures for improving collaboration were discussed in the report but,in true UN fashion, it recommended that the Management Committee of the GlobalProgramme set up a Working Group to consider the structuring of UN collaboration. Thusbegan the tortuous process that would result in the establishment of UNAIDS.In April 1992, the GPA’s Management Committee’s Working Group submitted its report,as requested. It asserted the ‘necessity to establish a much broader participation innational action than is currently the case’ 38 and urged that the coordination of internationalHIV/AIDS programming be improved. It added: ‘One of the most importantlessons … has been that no single agency is capable of responding to the totality of theproblems posed by AIDS; and, as never before, a cooperative effort, which is broadlybased but guided by a shared sense of purpose, is essential’.GPA suggested a yearly forum open to all stakeholders to coordinate efforts, but thedonor agencies were not satisfied with this proposal. Furthermore, as Nils Kastberg,then a Swedish diplomat, explained, he and his other Nordic counterparts believed thatthe Member States should assume responsibility for improving coordination, and “fornot having exercised proper governance”. He led his country’s delegation to the GPA’sManagement Committee at the end of 1992. “We were looking at a broader set of stakeholders,perhaps, for the first time, broader than the UN – people living with HIV, NGOs,advocacy groups.”‘One of the mostimportant lessons… has been thatno single agencyis capable ofresponding to thetotality of theproblems posedby AIDS; and,as never before, aco-operative effort,which is broadlybased but guidedby a shared senseof purpose, isessential’.Kastberg proposed an alternative to the forum: a Task Force representing all the keystakeholders, which was approved. There were 12 members – three from donor countries(the Netherlands, Sweden and the USA), three from low-income countries (Bulgaria, Indiaand Sudan), three from UN agencies (the World Bank, WHO and UNDP) and three fromcivil society organizations (the Netherlands-based AIDS Coordination Group, GNP+,with headquarters in the UK, and ENDA Tiers Monde from Senegal). The networks ofpeople living with HIV pushed hard for a place, and their representatives mobilized thenetworks for their support over the next few months.38GPA Management Committee (1992). Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group of the GPA ManagementCommittee, GPA/GMC(8)/92.5. Geneva, WHO, 24 April.