One can find a plethora of organizations that are fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa. All of them are working toward one goal: to eliminate this deadly disease; yet all are scavenging for pieces of funding to further their work. In the past few years, a number of organizations have been creating coalitions, coming together, uniting in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

There are government groups, civil society and faith based organizations, still none seem to be working together; three groups that just don’t intermix even though some of them desire to. So, UNAIDS is trying to bridge the gap by bringing UNAIDS Partnership Advisors into the discussion. 

These Partnership Advisors have offices around the world, and are working to make sure all parties are heard, regardless of their affiliation as governmental organizations, civil society organizations or faith based organizations.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007, AFJN staff member Jacques Bahati and intern Barbie Fischer were able to join other Faith Based Advocacy Groups in sitting down with one of the Partnership Advisors, Sally Smith from UNAIDS in Geneva. During this meeting Ms. Smith spoke extensively on being a part of national reporting to make sure the efforts of faith based organizations are included in the national findings and considered when creating legislation. She also emphasized joint-learning initiatives to ensure that we are not undermining the work of other organizations.