Addis Ababa — The second African Development Forum (ADF 2000), originally scheduled to be held from 22 - 26 October 2000 on the theme 'AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge', will now take place from 3 - 7 December at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in conjunction with UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, The World Bank and other partners, ADF 2000 has been designed to serve as a launching pad for a renewed commitment to more concerted action against HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Its overarching objective is to generate the highest level of scientific, technological, traditional and intellectual leadership commitment possible, at all levels of society and the development community, towards addressing the pandemic and mitigating the devastating impact it has already registered on the continent.
Some 1,500 African leaders and policy makers, civil society organisations -- including people living with HIV/AIDS and academia -- private sector and development partner representatives will seek to address concrete roles and responsibilities for leaders at all levels so as to galvanize an African-led response to the pandemic.
Despite all the efforts made over the past two decades, HIV/AIDS has continued to spread at an alarming rate throughout Africa. If unchecked, it could claim more lives than all the casualties in all the wars of the 20th Century put together. HIV/AIDS represents an emergency of unprecedented proportions, which threatens to derail Africa ?s development.
The December Forum will catalyze an ADF process that is designed to lead to concerted and coordinated country-level programmatic action. It seeks to:
- Upscale the continental response by documenting the status of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, identifying priority programmes for implementation and establishing a dialogue with African government planners and decision-makers to elaborate country-specific action plans and work programmes for the year 2001.
- Share knowledge on what has worked, as well as what has failed, in Africa?s struggle against HIV/AIDS to date;
- Discuss and develop strategies on how to mobilize the required resources to enable Africa?s fight against HIV/AIDS, as well as to ensure their accountable use;
- Focus on how a response to HIV/AIDS in Africa can be upscaled, as well as highlight the costs of failure to adequately address the epidemic;
- Assess what skills and capacities are needed to interpret HIV/AIDS data and related information as a means to effective implementation of policies;
- Support ongoing efforts to facilitate access to drugs and overcoming the hindrances of intellectual property regulations.
The ADF 2000 process will build on the efforts already underway by African countries and their development partners towards combating HIV/AIDS, and will address what gaps remain.
Involvement by the United Nations family and other partners in each African country is key to the success of the ADF 2000 process. The Forum will constitute a key opportunity for Africa and its partners to build on the momentum gained from the recent international conference in Durban, and to upscale Africa?s response to the pandemic. It will also provide a unique opportunity for Africa?s leaders to share experiences and learn from good HIV/AIDS policies in countries that have successfully risen to the challenge.
The Forum is expected to yield country action plans for the fight against HIV/AIDS as well as proposals on specific leadership roles at every level for countering the impact on Africa of HIV/AIDS.
Convened annually, the aim of ADF is to present the key stakeholders in African development with the results of current research and opinion on key development issues, in order to formulate shared goals and priorities that will enable African countries to implement effective programmes. Last year?s Forum, the first in the ADF series, took place from 24 - 28 October 1999 on the theme 'The Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age'.
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- For all the latest documents and information on ADF 2000, or to find out about how you can take part, please visit the ADF2000 website at http://www.un.org/depts/eca/adf2000
- To ensure your voice is heard on the ADF 2000 theme, please join the ADF 2000 electronic dialogue by going to the ADF 2000 website and following the link.
