For over 10 years, UN agencies, in collaboration with national partners, have been working to respond to HIV epidemic in Russia. This work have been carried out in the framework of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) which was formally established in 2007. Before that the work was organized under UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS.

The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS in Russia unites efforts and resources of 10 organizations, UN Cosponsors of UNAIDS, in their response to HIV. The Senior Human Rights Advisor of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the RF also participates in the work of the group.  

 

In the past 10 years, UN agencies have accumulated a vast experience of cooperation using unified planning, joint funding, and joint collaboration with national partners. An important part of its work was defining common UN priorities in collaboration in the area of HIV/AIDS response in the RF and the development of the Joint Programme of Support for 2009-2010. The Joint Programme of Support takes into account peculiarities of the epidemic in the country, response measures taken by the Russian Government in the framework of the National Priority project ’Health’, the Federal Target Programme on socially significant diseases, the Global Fund projects, as well as the growing Russia’s role in response to HIV/AIDS at regional and global levels.

 

The Joint Programme of Support aims at ensuring streamlined cooperation of UN agencies as one entity with Russian partners in achieving Universal Access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support by 2010 in compliance with international commitments of UN member-states.

 

The Joint Programme of Support is based on national priorities, international standards, and the experience of close collaboration of UN agencies with the Government of the Russian Federation.

 

The Programme consists of three priority focus areas of collaboration with Russian partners in 2009-2010:

-coordination of efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations;

-expansion of prevention programmes for youth, injective drug users, sex workers, men having sex with men;

-strategic information development, as well as harmonization of HIV monitoring and evaluation system.

 

The work of the Joint Team provides its members with an opportunity of exchanging information, getting professional assistance depending on agencies’ specialization, and most importantly, to identify and solve, in cooperation with national counterpars, common priority tasks in response to the epidemic. 

 

Anastasiya Danilina, HIV/AIDS and Labour Issues Coordinator, ILO Moscow office, says:

- Over the past years, the United Nations system has made multiple commitments to support countries in the achievement of universal access to prevention, care, treatment, and support. The joint UN programme of support on AIDS allows all organizations of the UN system to cooperate with Russian partners on the basis of a coordinated position and in line with international standards and national priorities.

The ILO, which has a mandate to promote decent work for all regardless of sex, age, nationality or HIV status, sees efforts to counteract HIV/AIDS as a priority, and the implementation of the UN Joint programme - as an important effort to synergize experience and best practices of different UN agencies, including in the area of dissemination of information to people belonging to various social groups. 

Raising awareness on HIV in the society helps equip people with knowledge necessary to make balanced and informed decisions regarding their health, and at the same time, contributes to diminishing stigma and discrimination in regard to HIV in the society. A joint UN communication activity will create a better environment for programmes aiming to counteract HIV spread in the Russian Federation, and in particular, will contribute to the implementation of the ILO programme of workplace education on HIV/AIDS.

 

Effective coordination of efforts in achieving Universal Access targets by 2010 directly depends on continuous work with the civil society, in particular with representatives of the community of people living with HIV. Thus, the programme includes measures in support of the implementation of recommendations of the First National Civil Society Conference on HIV/AIDS with an emphasis on the expansion of access to HIV prevention and treatment services. Today, this becomes particularly important in view of the pending completion of projects of Russian NGOs, which are being implemented in the framework of the Global Fund programmes. 

 

An important area of the Joint Programme of Support is the UN collaboration with Russian partners in the expansion of prevention programmes for youth, injective drug users, sex workers, men having sex with men. An integral part of this work is the dissemination of the world’s best practices in the most effective prevention programmes. 

 

UNODC Project Coordinator, Ilze Jakabsone believes:

 

- The Joint Programme brings us closer to the creation of the so called ’One UN’. This idea is very relevant and timely as far as prevention programmes are concerned, because while there is a clear division of labour among UN agencies, sometimes we duplicate our efforts in HIV response. The programme allows us to define more precisely the areas where we could consolidate our efforts and funding to achieve a common goal. 

 

We have been increasingly collaborating recently. There are good examples of successful UN projects on HIV, such as ‘Complex Strategies of Response to HIV/AIDS Among Youth in Russian Federation.

 

The third area of UN agencies collaboration on HIV/AIDS with Russian partners reflected in the programme is the improvement of the monitoring and evaluation system, collaboration in strategic information preparation, and analysis of the epidemic development and response measures.  

 

Marina Semenchenko, Team Leader a.i.,  UNAIDS in RF, remarks:

 

- Collaborative work of UN agencies allows to join resources, professional expertise, and all the best practices of each agency in response to HIV. This provides us with a unique opportunity to coordinate our activities, avoid duplication, design the most effective approaches to problem-solving, act as one, as if in a highly professional orchestra where different instruments play the same theme.

 

The UN Joint Team on HIV/AIDS is a group of experienced and like-minded professionals. HIV epidemic is a complex problem, and in our team, we have people with work experience in a variety of fields, such as medicine, sociology, economics, and management. We cooperate with governmental and non-governmental organizations, the community of people living with HIV, business structures, mass media, and donor organizations. Only through joint efforts we will able to achieve significant results in response to the epidemic.