Canada and UNAIDS
UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) is the lead multilateral organization coordinating the global response to HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS works with its partners to achieve the end of the AIDS epidemic by 2030. UNAIDS brings together the efforts and resources of 11 United Nations organizations involved in the HIV/AIDS response and plays a key role in coordinating their respective contributions. These 11 organizations include:
UNAIDS is a network of eleven United Nations organizations and a secretariat contributing their efforts and resources to the AIDS response. The organizations, or cosponsors, are:
- Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
- World Food Programme (WFP)
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
- United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)
- International Labour Organization (ILO)
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- The World Bank
UNAIDS provides global leadership in response to the AIDS epidemic and helps to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations system to address HIV/AIDS.
Canada's support for UNAIDS
Canada is a member of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (for 2015-2017) where it works to discuss key and emerging issues affecting the international response to HIV/AIDS. Canada also supports the implementation of the UNAIDS 2016-2021 Strategy and the Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: On the Fast-Track to Accelerate the Fight Against HIV and to End the AIDS Epidemic by 2030. In particular, one of Canada’s priorities is to support UNAIDS in its role of improving cooperation among relevant UN agencies in order to fast-track AIDS responses and to support member states in strengthening accountability mechanisms to deliver on the outcomes of the UNAIDS Strategy and Political Declaration. Canada has been a strong supporter of UNAIDS since it was established in 1996.
Canada's international development work with UNAIDS focuses on three strategic objectives:
- Enhancing the capacity of UNAIDS to better harmonize and coordinate the HIV/AIDS response at the country level.
- Supporting the efforts of UNAIDS to respond to the gender and rights dimensions of the epidemic
- Strengthening institutional effectiveness to improve the ability of UNAIDS to deliver results.
Achievements
With the support of Canada and other donors:
- In 2015, the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board approved the UNAIDS 2016-2021 Strategy. This strategy seeks to achieve a focused set of ambitious and people-centred goals and targets by 2020 in order to end the AIDS epidemic as a public threat in all places and among all populations by 2030.
- In 2015, the World Health Organization rolled out guidelines on key populations affected by HIV/AIDS in all regions and produced a guide to help countries to plan, develop and monitor services.
- In 2015, the UNFPA supplied 686.8 million male condoms and 14.7 million female condoms.
- In 2015, 71% of 97 UNFPA-supported countries maintained adequate supplies of condoms in their inventories and experienced no out- of-stock periods.
The UNAIDS Secretariat, together with UNDP, UN Women, UNFPA and UNICEF are collaborating on a campaign to end adolescent AIDS.
