Dear friends,

I just came back from a meeting with representatives from international organizations such as the Global Fund and UNAIDS, bilateral institutions such as DFID and the US government, and civil society organizations.

It was an interesting meeting where different views were shared, from the Global Fund's Executive Director (Richard Feachem) position on creating a central financial mechanism for disbursing HIV/AIDS funds, and have the World Bank concentrate on building up and strengthening health and delivery systems. This partnership, in Mr. Feachem's view, would help achieve concrete goals such as universal access for treatment.

The representative from civil society talked about the need to stop talking about a "Global AIDS structure," and focus on minimizing jargon when talking about fighting the pandemic.

The representative from DFID, as usual, focused on harmonization and system strengthening as the way to maximize the impact that financing has at the country level.

The representative from the US government disagreed with Mr. Feachem's view, and stated that it was better to have different organizations working together, instead of one central institution. He said that it is "against human nature" to just have one central organization.

In conclusion, this was a very interesting meeting. I was happy to see these decision-makers talk about international financing to fight HIV/AIDS at the national level, but was disappointed that young people were not mentioned at all. For example, I think young people might have some good ideas in creating delivery mechanisms that benefit non-formal education programs at the country-level, which could be a core part of country coordinating mechanisms (CCMs). Oh well... We still have a long way to go in advocating for young people!