AIDES in Vienna for the 18th International Aids Conference

benedicte — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:20:15 +0000

Our message at the 18th International Aids Conference in Vienna (Austria) will be: To remind world leaders that they have responsibilities and that universal access to treatment must become a reality. AIDES and our partners will be there to inform, share and progress in the fight.

You can see 79 videos on the theme of eradicating the virus by 2040
Robin Hoods will inaugurate the French-speaking, presentation area of our organisation on the 19th of July and the next day oral presentations will be organised to discuss major issues like criminalisation of homosexuality or the question of intellectual property in access to medicines. As well as the video competition, AIDES and its partners will be organising a series of events all week long. The Plus coalition (http://www.coalitionplus.org) will explain how a tax on international bank transactions can raise funds on an international level. Every day at lunch time,

Plus will organise mini conferences to explain the project called The Robin Hood Tax.

Other events: community-based rapid testing; the website dedicated to HIV positive people Seronet (www.seronet.info); the actions of the Africagay against Aids group; the significance of the female condom (Fémidon) and the provision of injection equipment for drug users.

Focus on community-based research

Because cooperation between NGOs and researchers is essential to define our priorities in the field, AIDES and its partners have become involved in community-based research.

Summary of AIDES at AIDS CONFERENCE

The G8, vital issues and high expectations

benedicte — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:44:51 +0000

Yesterday the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy was supposed to meet representatives of several French NGOs involved in the domain of development. Unfortunately this eagerly awaited event was cancelled by the Elysée Palace in favour of a meeting between the president and the French football player Thierry Henri.

On the eve of the G8 summit in Canada, these NGOs would have liked to remind the president that he must live up to the expectations of such a summit, especially on the following three points:

1. The president must commit himself to achieving the goal of universal access to prevention, care and treatment for HIV/Aids by 2010. Year after year since the United Nations commitments on Millennium Development Goals, guaranteeing this universal access, the leaders of rich countries seem to be incapable of keeping their promises. If we assess the situation now that the due date has arrived, the result is disappointing: only a third of those who need antiretroviral treatment have access to it.

Nicolas Srakozy must not renege on his commitments and he must do everything in his power to resolve the financial difficulties faced by the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, caused by repeated failures on the part of donor countries to respect their commitments. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people depend on this Fund every year. Besides it is vital that France find the means of having a bilateral, renewed, complementary and additional policy on its commitments to the Global Fund in order to reinforce the fight against these three pandemics.

EU and G 20 summits: French and German civil societies welcome the call by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to tax bank transactions

benedicte — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:25:18 +0000

74 civil society organisations in France and Germany praise the statements of the French president and the German chancellor who will jointly defend, during the G20 summit from 26^th to 27^th June, the implementation of an international tax on bank transactions.

They call on French and German leaders to also take the opportunity of the European Summit on June 17th to promote the implementation of the tax on bank transactions throughout Europe.

By supporting the tax on bank transactions at the G20, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel align themselves with civil society; over 150,000 citizens of the world have signed the petition demanding that the G20 implement this tax. The petition will be given to the leaders of the G20 on the 25^th of June in Toronto. In the past, this alignment of European leaders and civil society brought about great international advances despite opposition from China and the United States. This was the case for instance for the international treaty which prohibited the trade of land mines in 1997.

More than ever, in this period of financial crisis, the fight against hunger, poverty, pandemics and climate change demand urgent action from world leaders. At the same time, in Europe and developing countries, the financial crisis has forced governments to drastically reduce their budget deficits. A tax on bank transaction would generate hundreds of millions of euros a year and would allow the international community to not renege on their commitments regarding development and climate change.

Funding proposals submitted to the Global Fund are reviewed by a 43-member Technical Review Panel

benedicte — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:20:04 +0000

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an international financing institution that invests the world’s money to save lives. To date, it has committed US$ 19.3 billion in 144 countries to support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programs against the three diseases.

Funding proposals submitted to the Global Fund are reviewed by a 43-member Technical Review Panel (TRP). The review takes place about once a year for two weeks, which current members have described as ‘a unique and memorable experience’.

Because proposals focus on the fight against the three diseases and related health systems strengthening, members of the TRP need to have a wide range of expertise. In addition to having sound technical knowledge and extensive program experience in HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria, it is also important that TRP members understand broader health systems and development ‘cross-cutting’ issues. These include capacity-building, governance and macroeconomics, as well as topics such as budgeting and financial management (value for money), gender, sexual orientation and gender identities, human resources, procurement and service delivery – to name but a few. For this reason, we do not recruit people with very narrow expertise.

For this important task, experts must be able to review large volumes of documentation under considerable time pressure and work effectively in small groups and large plenary sessions to reach consensus on funding recommendations. They must also be able to present their findings in a clear and concise way, in English, to the full panel, as well as in written form to be communicated to the Board and applicants.

The president Sarkozy has turned his back on HIV/Aids patients, activists turn their back on him

benedicte — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:16:27 +0000

5^th Francophone HIV/Aids conference – Casablanca, 28th-31st March 2010

The president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy has turned his back on HIV/Aids patients, activists turn their back on him at the conference.

Activists from Act Up-Paris, AIDES and Sidaction called on those working in the fight against Aids to turn their backs on Patrice Debré, Aids ambassador for France, during his closing speech at the conference.

We are still far from universal access to treatment which was promised for 2010, despite the repeated pledges made by the French president since he was elected in 2007.

Today we know how to stop this epidemic, it’s only a question of political choice.

Therefore we ask Nicolas Sarkozy not to renege on his commitments: France must support a Global fund of 20 billion and increase its contributions accordingly.

The Robin tax : not doing it now would be criminal.

benedicte — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:11:18 +0000

“As a HIV positive French man and being fortunate enough to have free medication, I support HIV positive people the world over, and I support the Robin tax. I also support life! This tax on foreign exchange transactions would allow us to raise enough money to pay for treatment for every HIV positive person in the world”. With the appropriate hat, at the 5^th Francophone conference on HIV here in Casablanca, Vincent Pelletier, director of PLUS and managing director of AIDES, has just launched the campaign to support the Robin tax.