DOI: 10.1097/01.DCC.0000325102.05981.66

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Issn Print: 0730-4625

Publication Date: 2009/01/01


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The creation of a new United Nations (UN) agency for women would dramatically improve the international response to the autoimmune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic, said the AIDS-Free World at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico in August 2008. Until now, the UN's response to women has been fragmented and incoherent. However, UN member states were posed to adopt a resolution at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly in September 2008 to establish a new agency. The ideal model, said advocates of women's rights, would combine and significantly strengthen the 4 tiny, understaffed, and poorly funded parts of the UN currently devoted to women's issues; it would be led by an undersecretary general with decision-making authority at the top ranks of the UN system, would lean on the expertise of civil society, and would have an initial budget of at least $1 billion dollars.
AIDS-Free World has been petitioning the international community for more than 2 years to create a new UN agency that would give appropriate representation to 52% of the world's population and bring expertise to gender issues, including the grossly disproportionate impact of the AIDS pandemic on women and girls. The AIDS pandemic has exacted a carnage among women that knows no parallel in modern history. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than two-thirds of people living with the virus, some 60% of infected adults are women. Three of 4 young people in the region who are living with HIV are females.
The creation of a well-funding, dedicated UN agency to promote women's human rights and advance the worldwide struggle for gender equality has never been more urgent. Advocacy to ensure that member states adopt this resolution is a top priority for AIDS-Free World. For more information, please contact press@aids-freeworld.org.
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