UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years234Trenton-Mbonde considered that a momentum was created in those early years: “Itbegan with the formation of the Cabinet Committee, continued with the first GlobalFund grant, and kept going with the preparations for the UNGASS. This led to nationalconsultations, so that we could examine the issues that were to be brought to the GeneralAssembly Special Session”.Fueling this momentum was Malawi’s qualification for debt relief of US$ 1 billion inDecember 2001 under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. Thisinitiative ensures that countries facing unsustainable debt are relieved of their burden aslong as they fulfil certain conditions, such as establishing a track record of reform andsound policies, as assessed by the International Monetary Fund.The UN in Malawi hasbeen working to redressthe pre-existing societalinequalities that driveAIDS, such as genderbasedpower imbalancesUNAIDSIn 2002, Erasmus Morah arrived in Lilongwe as the new UNAIDS Country Coordinator,and spent the next four years supporting the Malawi Government in developing thepolitical and financial structures necessary to respond to AIDS in a democratic andcoherent manner, and in which all development partners would be held accountable forresults. Morah would help to ‘institutionalize’ the principles of coordination, countryownership and accountability that Trenton-Mbonde had been focusing on.Coordination and consensusBy 2004, Malawi’s national response to AIDS was being planned through inclusive,consultative processes; the government had created a body to coordinate the activitiesand input of a multitude of stakeholders, and it had established effective systems andmechanisms for evaluation, accountability and transparency.As a result of donor-driven requirements that were in line with the harmonizationguidelines that had been endorsed in various agreements 15 , Malawi established15These include the Rome Declaration on Harmonization of February 2003 and the guidelines on the coordinationof AIDS interventions developed at the 13 th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually TransmittedInfections in September 2003.