Coordination for Children and HIV and AIDS in East Asian Pacific Region - Inter-Agency Mechanisms

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Coordination for Children and HIV and AIDS in
East Asian Pacific Region - Inter-Agency
Mechanisms
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Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV and
AIDS Meeting April 23-24 Yoshimi Nishino
HIV/AIDS Specialist East Asia Regional Office
UNICEF
A Call to Action Children The missing face of
AIDS
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Regional Partnership and Major Initiatives

• 1.East Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation
  Scaling up response for children Hanoi Call to
  Action in March 2006
• 2. ASEAN Summit Declaration on HIV and AIDS
  January 2007
• 3. UN Regional Partnership Forum of Children and
  AIDS, presented at Asia Pacific Regional
  Directors Forum created March 2007
• 4. Other events happening as results of Hanoi
  consultation

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Children and AIDS as Emergency Issues in Asia

• Impacts on children are serious in Asia
• 120,700 children living with HIV and AIDS
• 46,900 children were newly infected
• 155,400 mothers needed MTCT
• 35,000 children needed ART
• 1.5 million children had been orphaned
• (in 2004 from presentations of Tim Brown and Neff
  Walker and at ICAAP in Kobe)

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of Children affected by AIDS in EAP
Country At least one parent died of AIDS Double orphans Children living with HIV
Thailand 300,800 30,000 --
Cambodia 60,000 (being revised) -- 12,000
Papua New Guinea (3.000)- 9,400? -- 5,393
China (end 2005, unofficial) 146,000 single double orphans 470,000 orphaned or living in a household with an HIV parent(s) 146,000 single double orphans 470,000 orphaned or living in a household with an HIV parent(s) 9,000 (in 2005 alone thru MTCT)
Vietnam 283,000 (being revised) -- 19,200
Source Various country assessments by MOPH,
UNICEF or UNCT
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Contributions of the Hanoi Consultation

• Gained Governmental Commitment to act of issues
  of children in the context of HIV and AIDS
• Integrated children HIV/AIDS issues into ASEAN
  declaration (higher-level political commitment)
• Raised Recognition of the importance of data
  collection ? National Assessments of Children ,
  Creation Data Hub, and estimation work on HIV
• Input for UN Partnership Forum
• Created coordination for children and AIDS at the
  country level (Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, PNG
  etc)
• Efforts of follow up and planning for the next
  regional meeting

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ASEAN Commitment on HIV and AIDS in Cebu, January
2007

Cebu commitment acknowledge the Hanoi Call to
Actions for Children and HIV/AIDS and recognizes
the needs for actions. NOTING the Hanoi Call to
Action for Children and HIV/AIDS in East Asia and
the Pacific Region of 24 March 2006, which
highlights nine urgent actions to scale up
response to children who are vulnerable to,
infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Strengthen the role of the ASEAN Task Force on
AIDS to effectively implement regional responses
to HIV .. ASEAN Task Force Work plan was
drafted and presented to participants at KL
meeting, January 2007. Mutli-agencies
(Governments, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNAIDS etc)
committed to support proposed activities.
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Regional Partnership Forum on Children AIDS

• Objectives
• To advocate the rights of children by
  highlighting emerging areas of concerns
• To share programs experiences research findings
  for policy advocacy/programming
• To coordinate on technical matters information
  on program costs and resource needs.

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Regional Partnership Forum on Children
AIDSProposed tasks and actions

• Knowledge diffusion on children and HIV/AIDS
  (country estimations, analyses, research methods
  and analytical guidelines).
• Encourage data collection, assessments and
  reviews of legislation policies, development of
  guidelines for the protection, support and care
  of OVCs and CABA.
• Encourage the development of country-specific
  targets and action plans for children.
• Advocate for
• Increased resources, and better allocation and
  utilization thereof, to the level necessary for
  an adequate response to children (OVC and CABA).
• Establishment of national multi-sectoral
  mechanisms that focus on children and will help
  to coordinate scaled-up responses.
• Actions to reduce stigma / discrimination and
  other obstacles to access by all children to
  essential services.
• Expanded efforts to protect children without
  caregivers through family- and community- based
  care and support options.
• National monitoring and evaluation systems.
• Support regional and international networking,
  information sharing and research to scale up
  national responses.

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Regional Partnership Forum on Children
AIDSMembership and Organization

• Core members
• Representatives / technical focal points from
  regional UN agencies, including UNICEF, WHO,
  UNFPA, UNESC, ILO and UNAIDS as well as
  representatives of major civil society
  organizations and INGOs eg. Family Health
  International, the Save the Children, Plan
  International, etc
• Additional members may be invited by core members
  on the basis of individual expertise and capacity
  to encourage support from their organizations and
  that of their partners to implement the proposed
  activities
• Proposed government members China, Cambodia,
  Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand
  and Vietnam (by population sizes, stage of
  epidemic and current responses)

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Other Recent Partnerships Events

• 1. AIDS Commissions of Asia and Pacific was
  created OVC Policy recommendations based on
  costing and estimation data
• 2 CHINA and Regional Meeting -Chinese MCA is
  interested in organizing a regional meeting of
  AIDS orphans this year .
• 3 CAMBODIA - The National Multi-sectoral OVC
  Task Force is currently undertaking a situation
  analysis of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)
• 4. VIETNAM National Plan of Actions for
  children and HIV is being drafted by inter-agency
  partnership group
• 5. ESTIMATION and projection of HIV Epi trends
  (coordination with UNAIDS, CDC, WHO etc)
• 6. NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS of Children (Indonesia,
  China, Malaysia). Partnership with local
  universities
• Data Hub created for Asia and Pacific (with
  UNAIDS, ADB), etc.

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Recommendations for IATT Based on reflections

• IMPROVED INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND KM to fill the
  information gaps between the region and the
  international levels as well as among agencies
  (data, policy directions)
• FACILITATING HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUES on OVC policies
  and children affected by HIV and AIDS and
  advocacy inside and outside the core donor
  agencies
• EXPAND REGIONAL COMPARISONS AND FEEDBACK to each
  region (low or high prevalence)
• MORE RESOURCE mobilization and support
• STRENGTHEN LINKAGES with specialized
  international researchers (social protections,
  costing, estimation/projection, policy experts
  etc.) and professional resource sharing among
  agencies

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Thank you!