MENAHRA – MENA to benefit from International experiences during IAS 2014
The 20th International AIDS Conference will be held at the end of this week in Melbourne, Australia, during which the most prominent workers in HIV/AIDS field will meet, in addition to the policy makers, people living with HIV and activists in this field.
The conference shall be an opportunity to evaluate the situation in our region and benefit from the international expertise and modern scientific developments and adapt the services to our region, where such international gathering will provide the new scientific knowledge, in addition to many other opportunities in this field.
The Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association “MENAHRA” will take part in this international conference and will participate in the Global Village at the MENA Networking Zone.
MENAHRA stresses on the role of the civil society in calling to follow an approach based on the prevention of HIV/AIDS, without neglecting the need to increasingly engage governments in this field. It also calls policy makers in the region to look into the laws related to the rights of drug users, the necessity to avoid their criminalization and guarantee their access to harm reduction services, including prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. This conference is an opportunity to emphasize the necessity to increase resources in the MENA region.
Amid the circumstances of our region, the percentage of available resources has dropped and were concentrated as per the priorities of the donors, institutions, and organizations which led to the decrease in financing HIV/AIDS-related projects, and put our region at the lowest level of coverage to provide treatment to people living with HIV, which subsequently led to the increase of the epidemic in the region. Thus, MENAHRA calls for adequate financial resources to cover harm reduction-related projects in the region and guarantee that the key populations have access to services while assuring the necessity of placing a funding plan to mobilize resources.
