[Press Kit]

Call to Action I December1999

Call to Action

1 December 1999

Priorities and reform

Monitoring and evaluation

* Develop priority national policies in support
of HIV prevention and mitigation of the
impact of AIDS. Focus on protecting younger
children and girls and on providing young people
with effective education on HIV and AIDS and
on related reproductive health issues. Encourage
prevention programmes involving peer
educators.
* Mobilize widespread support for the fight
against AIDS and establish frameworks linking
efforts of government, civil society, including
religious organizations, non-governmental
organizations, the private sector and
communities to use resources most efficiently.
* Ensure access to education, especially for
girls, by introducing specific measures such as
subsidies, scholarships and the provision of
alternative avenues for high-quality education,
such as community schools.
* Reform the education sector to respond better
to the needs of orphans and their
communities. The traditional approach to
education needs to be overhauled to make
schools more participatory and responsive to the
everyday needs of students and more relevant to
their lives. It is essential that schools help
students acquire skills that can enable them to
make informed decisions and avoid risks.
Teacher training and support is pivotal to this
effort.
* Reform the health sector to emphasize HIV
prevention and the provision of quality health
care services that can address the needs of
children and communities affected by AIDS.
* Introduce and enforce laws that realize the
rights of children and women, emphasizing
social welfare and the best interests of the child.
Focus on protection issues such as child abuse
and rape, children in commercial sex work,
exploitative child labour, juvenile justice, and
children and women who lack secure tenure and
are denied property ownership.

* Identify, assess and document successful
community-based initiatives with a view to
expanding them into effective national or
intercountry programmes.
* Monitor the impact of HIV and AIDS on
children and families at all levels and use the
information gathered to take targeted action.
* Equip communities to monitor the local
impact of the epidemic, facilitate action and
evaluate interventions.
Ill. Global level
'Keep children orphaned by AIDS high on the
global agenda': Governments, donors, the private
sector and international organizations have a moral
obligation to act comprehensively and quickly in
addressing the rights and needs of AIDS orphans.
Their efforts can focus on these actions:
* Make AIDS central to development
assistance, especially for the most affected
countries in Africa. Ensure that resources are
allocated in such a way that countries can do
more than merely stave off increased poverty
and the deterioration of social services.
* Make AIDS orphans a priority in plans to
accelerate debt relief and also in sector-wide
lending initiatives.
* Provide financial support for long-term
human development projects.
* Promote and advocate for the rights of
children and women as articulated in CRC and
CEDAW.
* Encourage the development of resource
networks to facilitate the sharing of human,
technical and financial resources regionally and
globally.

Issued by UNAIDS, UNICEF and BLCA