Plenary

Deeply concerned that AIDS already had claimed 30 million lives and orphaned 16 million children since it was first discovered in 1981, the United Nations General Assembly today promised to partner with all stakeholders to implement “bold and decisive action” to wipe out what remained of an unprecedented global human tragedy despite significant progress in the past decade to combat the disease.

Innovative drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and microbicides to treat HIV infection must be developed urgently and made readily available worldwide, particularly to sex workers, homosexual men, intravenous drug users and others who needed them most, participants said this morning during a panel discussion held in connection with this week’s United Nations high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS.

Women and girls bore a disproportionate burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and if Governments were serious about halting the disease in the next decade, they must throw their political weight squarely behind that issue by urgently expanding sexual and reproductive health services, legislating gender equality, and understanding that no gains would be made without ending violence against women, said participants today in a General Assembly panel discussion on “Women, girls and HIV”.

Calling for a “prevention revolution” on the second day of the General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, ministers and other high-ranking Government officials stressed that programmes to combat the disease must be mainstreamed into national health systems during the next phase of the global response to the pandemic, while emphasizing that those directly affected must be included in the search for solutions.

The tragic 30-year arc of the AIDS virus, which had left in its wake some 30 million people dead, nearly as many struggling to live with the disease and vast numbers of orphans, had likewise left the international community scrambling to answer a host of complex questions, such as how to accelerate targeted prevention interventions, and perhaps most critically, what can be done stop new infections.

After three decades, the global fight against AIDS was at a moment of truth and Governments, civil society and the private sector must come together to ensure that past commitments to achieve universal access to life-saving treatments were met and that the elusive pandemic was stopped in its tracks in the coming decade, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared today as he opened the General Assembly High-level Meeting on AIDS, which aimed to shape the future global response.

Ten years after the world community had come together to forge the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, participants in the first of five panels scheduled during this week’s three-day United Nations high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS called for a new paradigm in AIDS response that focused not only on the disease, but championed broader social development, supported the establishment of robust national health systems and, most importantly, responded to those without a voice.

United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro this morning made a strong call for creating a global green economy characterized by abundant jobs, sustainable livelihoods, dynamic economic growth and clean energy. Kicking off a day-long informal General Assembly thematic debate on “Green economy: a pathway to sustainable development”, she said the green economy also must address the menaces caused by climate change, notably food and energy insecurity and deforestation.

To help promote a better understanding on the concept of the green economy — one of the biggest emerging issues as countries seek to promote economic development, poverty eradication and the protection of the environment — the United Nations General Assembly is convening a one-day thematic debate on Thursday, 2 June.

The General Assembly today elected 15 States to serve on the Human Rights Council for three-year terms beginning next month, in a single round of secret balloting which followed the candidates’ nomination by their respective regional groups.