UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 237Participants at theUNAIDS regionnalstrategic planning meetingin New Delhi, India,1995.UNAIDSInforming countriesDuring 1995, UNAIDS organized regional strategic planning meetings with different stakeholdersaround the world – governments, donors, nongovernmental organizations andcommunity-based organizations, networks of people living with HIV, programme implementers,policy makers and opinion leaders and members of the academic and researchcommunities. As Mane explained: “We had a basic strategic framework but the interestingthing was Peter asked us to focus a lot on what UNAIDS should not be because the dangerwas that we would try to be something that we would never be able to fulfil. So, we did thosemeetings in four months, in five meetings around the world – I attended every single oneof them – and put together a strategic plan which was then approved by the ProgrammeCoordinating Board”.Meetings were held in New Delhi, Santiago, Nairobi, Venice and Dakar, and each meetingwas organized by the office of a different Cosponsor.People attending these regional meetings were confused by what they heard aboutUNAIDS. If UNAIDS was being created because the epidemic was such a major problem,why was it so much smaller than GPA? And what was happening to the funding that GPAused to provide to countries?Julia Cleves was at the UNAIDS meeting in New Delhi; at the time she was Chief Health andPopulation Adviser at DFID. “I was predisposed to be positive towards UNAIDS but at themeeting what was said was incomprehensible. Most of the other bilaterals’ staff didn’t under-