Church World Service
The Episcopal Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Maryknoll AIDS Task Force
United Church of Christ – Justice and Witness Ministries
United Church of Christ – Wider Church Ministries
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society

As U.S. Christian organizations represented at the five-year review of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), we commend world governments for gathering to renew their commitments to the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic worldwide. We came to this meeting because of our faith communities’ recognition that AIDS represents one of the greatest challenges to God’s will for creation, and one of the greatest threats to our common humanity. In particular, we are grateful for the willingness of the United States delegation to engage the voices of civil-society organizations at this meeting. We believe the final text of the Political Declaration of the Assembly is far stronger than earlier drafts because of this process, and we applaud the U.S. Global AIDS Administrator’s announcement of a plan to continue this engagement as we move forward in shaping U.S. HIV and AIDS policy.

We join other members of civil society and governments in expressing deep concern that the promises for prevention, education, treatment, and care in the 2001 UNGASS declaration have not been met and that the pandemic continues to escalate. While the new Political Declaration represents an important renewal of the commitment by member states to the fight against HIV and AIDS worldwide, we believe it continues to fall short in several areas. In particular, we believe that the new Declaration could have been much stronger in establishing concrete and internationally recognized targets for prevention, education, treatment and care and recognizing the special needs of specific vulnerable populations.

Our concern about the strength of the new Political Declaration in these areas is informed both by our experience as advocates in the United States for the strongest possible national policy on AIDS as well as our history of implementing HIV and AIDS programs with our partner Churches in the developing world. It is vitally important that international strategies reflect the strongest possible proven methods for fighting this deadly pandemic.

That said, we recognize that political declarations alone will not enable us to eradicate HIV/AIDS. Rather, the fight will be won or lost based on the concrete steps of member states and civil society in keeping the promises that have already been made. Civil-society groups, including Churches, are called to intensify our own capacities and programs to address the pandemic. Additionally, we understand that we bear a great deal of the burden for holding our own government accountable for its promises and commit to continue and intensify our advocacy for U.S. policies that address this great crisis in the most robust way. We call on U.S. policymakers to:

• Scale up significantly the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and work with other governments to do the same.
• Expand the scope of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) both through the regular addition of new focus countries and extension of the program’s lifespan;
• Remove all restrictions on U.S. HIV/AIDS funding that hinder the fullest range of evidence-based prevention strategies;
• Comply with U.S. law that requires at least 10% of all U.S. global HIV/AIDS funding be directed to orphans and vulnerable children, and implement a strong comprehensive strategy for the use of this funding; and
• Invest in strengthening health systems in economically impoverished countries in order to build the human capacity and infrastructure needed to treat and eradicate AIDS.

Finally, while we found last week’s meeting useful, we believe that for future meetings, member states, civil society, and the UN should invest adequate resources to enable broad-based participation and transparency at the earliest possible stage. These hallmarks of democratic tradition would produce stronger outcome documents. The Political Declaration is strongest in the areas shaped by inclusive and transparent collaboration. HIV and AIDS affect all of God’s children, and thus, all must have a stake and a voice in its eradication.

While there are very real and sometimes overwhelming challenges to the world’s effort to eradicate HIV and AIDS, we remain filled with great hope at what can be accomplished through our common efforts. As one of history’s great campaigners against the disease, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has said: “Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death; and victory is ours through him who loves us.”