The process to review progress on the implementation of the 2016 Political Declaration is an opportunity to measure the effectiveness of national AIDS responses. The reports resulting from these processes must reflect reviews and input from all national stakeholders, including the community sector. However, community sector groups – and particularly key populations- are often not adequately involved or are excluded in these processes.
Progress in responding to the HIV epidemic is measured against a set of 10 global commitments and expanded targets established in the 2016 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS. These commitments are:
Ensure that 30 million people living with HIV have access to treatment through meeting the 90–90–90 targets by 2020
Eliminate new HIV infections among children by 2020 while ensuring that 1.6 million children have access to HIV treatment by 2018
Ensure access to combination prevention options, including pre-exposure prophylaxis, voluntary medical male circumcision, harm reduction and condoms, to at least 90% of people by 2020, especially young women and adolescent girls in high-prevalence countries and key populations—gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers and their clients, people who inject drugs and prisoners
Eliminate gender inequalities and end all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls, people living with HIV and key populations by 2020
Ensure that 90% of young people have the skills, knowledge and capacity to protect themselves from HIV and have access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2020, in order to reduce the number of new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women to below 100 000 per year
Ensure that 75% of people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV benefit from HIV sensitive social protection by 2020
Ensure that at least 30% of all service delivery is community-led by 2020
Ensure that HIV investments increase to US$ 26 billion by 2020, including a quarter for HIV prevention and 6% for social enablers
Empower people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV to know their rights and to access justice and legal services to prevent and challenge violations of human rights
Commit to taking AIDS out of isolation through people-centered systems to improve universal health coverage, including treatment for tuberculosis, cervical cancer and hepatitis B and C
The reported data are utilized for national-level reviews (including the Global Fund and similar reprogramming efforts), regional reviews, and global analysis. These reports are designed to identify challenges and constraints and recommend action to accelerate the achievement of the targets.
The 2017 Global AIDS Monitoring is the first year after the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals and also the first year of reporting for the HIV monitoring framework for 2016–2021. The guidelines reflect a review of the indicator set used for global reporting in previous years and integrate indicators that monitor the treatment cascade.
The review and reporting process for the 2016 period is already underway. Countries need to send their progress reports to UNAIDS by March 31, 2017.
In the past, ICASO and partners have supported community sector groups in different countries to be involved in the review and reporting. Reviews done by the community sector, including by ICASO indicate that involvement of the community sector has been varied: in some countries participation and engagement have been outstanding, while in others, exclusion has been the rule. The quality and completeness of the country progress reports also varied.
As more countries are submitting reports (173 countries submitted reports in 2016) the community sector is expected to play a more prominent role. It is imperative that community groups start their engagement now, if they have not already done so. The community sector holds the key to critical data and information that governments may not have or are not willing to report on, particularly with respect to the needs and challenges faced by key populations and those most at risk and marginalized. Community groups can bring to the table relevant and updated information that will present a more realistic picture of the epidemic in the country.