... Five critical areas were addressed

DIRECTOR OF Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP), Dereck Springer, has stated that the recent regional joint meeting in Trinidad and Tobago sought to affirm the work done in response to HIV by stakeholder groups and individual organisations across the region.

The five thematic areas discussed were:

1. Access to HIV and sexual and reproductive health services including adolescents’ access;

2. Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV (PLHIV);

3. Access to justice and redress

4. Gender-inclusive policies and laws; and

5. Comprehensive sexuality education in schools.

He further stated, “We must now build upon these outcomes by facilitating the collaboration and partnership of our five stakeholder groups to take collective action to end AIDS by 2030.”

The meeting is aimed at moving stakeholders beyond information sharing and sensitisation to discussing and agreeing on mechanisms or strategies for effecting harmonised and sustainable partnerships and collaboration between all stakeholder groups at the organisational, national, regional and international levels for ending AIDS.

Ayanna Webster-Roy, minister of state in the Office of the Prime Minister, Trinidad and Tobago, holding the portfolios of Gender and Child Affairs, Ecclesiastical Affairs and Central Administration Services. Webster-Roy also challenged participants to examine national and regional issues and goals.

He urged them to take into consideration the targets established by the United Nations High Level Meeting Political Declaration, June 2016, on ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030; the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals approved by 192 nations at the United Nations in September 2015, and the commitments made by civil society, faithbased and other implementing stakeholder groups for ending AIDS.