The ‘AIDS and MDGs’ Approach: what is it, why does it matter, and how do we take it forward?

Abstract

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been mixed, and many observers have noted the tendency for development actors to address individual MDGs largely in isolation from one another. This in turn has resulted in missed opportunities to catalyse greater interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation towards MDG achievement. The term ‘AIDS and MDGs’ is gaining currency as an approach that aims to explore, strengthen and leverage the links between AIDS and other health and development issues. Drawing from academic literature and from MDG country reports, this article sets out three important pillars to an AIDS and MDGs approach: 1) understanding how AIDS and the other MDGs affect one another; 2) documenting and exchanging lessons learned across MDGs; and 3) creating cross- MDG synergy. We propose broader policy level implications for this approach and how UNDP and other partners can take this agenda forward. Because the MDGs explicitly locate HIV within a broader international commitment to human development targets, they provide a critical platform for development partners to galvanise resources, political will and momentum behind a broader, systematic and structural approach to HIV, health and development.

Notes

1 United Nations Millennium Declaration, New York, 2000.

2 The original gender goal had a 2005 target, which was later changed to 2015, although 2005 was kept as a preferred aim. Added to the MDGs later in 2005, the target for universal access was set at 2010.

3 2005 World Summit Outcome, at http://daccess_dds_ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NO5/487/60/PDF/NO548760.pdf?openelement.

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6 AIDS 2031, Revolutionising the AIDS Response: Building AIDS Resilient Communities, 2010, at http://www.aids2031.org/pdfs/social%20dnvers%20report%201st%20pg_merged.pdf.

7 UNAIDS–WHO, Global Facts and Figures, Geneva: UNAIDS–WHO, 2009.

8 UNAIDS, 32nd Meeting of the UNAIDS Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations (CCO), 2009.

9 AIDS 2031, Revolutionising the AIDS Response: Building AIDS resilient Communities.

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11 R Greener, ‘The macroeconomics of HIV/AIDS’, in M Haacker (ed), The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Poverty and Inequality, Washington, DC: IMF, 2004.

12 P Piot et al, ‘Squaring the circle’.

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19 D Bell & A Murenha, ‘Re-thinking schooling in Africa: education in an era of HIV & AIDS’, AIDS 2031 Social Drivers Working Group at http://www.aids2031.org/pdfs/re-thinking%20schooling%20in%20africa.pdf.

20 Ibid.

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24 Kumar, ‘Socio-economic impact of HIV at the individual and household levels in Indonesia’.

25 UNAIDS–WHO, Global Facts and Figures.

26 RE Black et al, ‘Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality in 2008: a systematic analysis’, Lancet, 375, 2010, pp 1969–1987.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

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30 Hogan et al, ‘Maternal mortality for 181 countries’.

31 Ibid.

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33 P Piot et al, ‘Squaring the circle’; S Gillespie et al, ‘Is poverty or wealth driving HIV transmission?’, AIDS , 21(Suppl 7), 2007, pp S5–S16; and T Barnett & D Toupouzis, HIV/AIDS and Rural Poverty: Challenges for the Next Decade (in press).

34 UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update, Geneva: UNAIDS, 2006.

35 Gillespie et al, ‘Is poverty or wealth driving HIV transmission?’.

36 Ibid; and Barnett & Toupouzis, HIV/AIDS and Rural Poverty.

37 P Piot et al, ‘Squaring the circle’; and Gillespie et al, ‘Is poverty or wealth driving HIV transmission?’.

38 AIDS 2031, Revolutionising the AIDS Response.

39 UNAIDS–WHO, Global Facts and Figures.

40 J Kim et al, ‘Exploring the role of economic empowerment in HIV prevention’, AIDS , 22(Suppl 4), 2008, pp S57–S71.

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47 Bell & Murenha, ‘Re-thinking schooling in Africa’.

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50 Bell & Murenha, ‘Re-thinking schooling in Africa’.

51 UNAIDS, ‘UNAIDS promotes combination HIV prevention towards universal access goals’, press statement, Geneva, 2009.

52 A Costello et al, ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’, Lancet, 373, 2009, pp 1693–1733.

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54 The AIDS 2031 initiative was established in 2008 to consider what has been learned about the AIDS response in the previous three decades and to make recommendations for a long-term response that could change the face of the pandemic by 2031. The initiative convened nine multidisciplinary working groups to question conventional wisdom, stimulate new research and spark public debate around modelling the epidemic; structural determinants (or ‘social drivers’); the impact of new science and technology; programmatic responses; financing the response; communication; and the future of leadership.

55 AIDS 2031, Revolutionising the AIDS Response.

56 Kim et al, ‘Exploring the role of economic empowerment in HIV prevention’.