On Wednesday, 19 December the General Assembly approved the resolution on the organisation of the 2008 comprehensive review of the progress achieved in realizing the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS. Please see below for more information.
Download the full resolution in English, Español, Français, Arabic, Chinese
and Russian.
In summary, the resolution agrees to the following:
* A high level meeting to be held June 10-11 2008 to review progress on the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.
* Plenary meetings, five thematic panels and a civil society hearing. The President of the General Assembly is to finalize themes for the panels and the format for the civil society hearings.
* The opening plenary will include the UN Secretary General, the President of the General Assembly, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, an emiment person actively engaged in the response and a person openly living with HIV. The President of the General Assembly will identify both of these last two speakers.
* The resolution calls on governments to submit national reports by January
31 2008 and for the UN Secretary General to submit a report on progress and challenges six weeks before the High Level meeting.
* Encourages member states to include civil society in their government delegations.
* NGOs with observer status with the General Assembly, ECOSOC status and UNAIDS PCB NGOs are invited to participate, for other NGOS the President of the General Assembly will submit a list, no later than March 31, for approval by member states. We will communicate the process for NGOs to apply to be on this list as soon as we know.
* The outcome document of the High Level meeting will be a comprehensive summary, drafted by the President of the General Assembly.
We will keep you posted as soon as we have further information on the process.