The constituency of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) under their umbrella organization National Forum of People Living HIV&AIDS Networks in Uganda (NAFOPHANU) on February 3, 2016 held a press conference at their offices to decry the move to dissolve the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) to subsume it under the AIDS Control Programme under the Ministry of Health.
The International Community of Women Living with HIV was at the conference and Lillian Mworeko, the Executive Director was one of the panelists.
The move to dissolve UAC follows recommendation made recently by the Budget Committee of Parliament. The committee indicates that by maintaining UAC under Office of the President, it makes government duplicate activities by having the AIDS Control Program under the Ministry of Health carrying out similar activities. They thus recommended that the law which established UAC be amended so as to have it answerable to the Ministry of Health and eliminate duplication of roles on AIDS Control.
This is a recommendation that people living with HIV oppose saying in the Press statement, “This is totally wrong since the roles of the two entities are quite distinct and do not overlap at all. Uganda AIDS Commission plays the overall oversight and coordination role of the multi-sectoral response be it at national and decentralized level, policy development, advocacy, resource mobilization and planning in a bid to fulfill the 3 ‘Ones’ principle (One National HIV Strategic Plan, One Monitoring & Evaluation Plan and one Coordinating Entity). The Ministry of health and other sectors use the plans to develop sector specific plans and guidelines. On the other hand, the National AIDS Control Programme (ACP) of the Ministry of Health is focused on the Public Health sector response- mainly the biomedical interventions targeting health workers and patients in a health facility. To a large extent, the behavioral and structural interventions remain a role of UAC and multi sectoral players of which UAC coordinates.”
In 1992, Uganda was the first country in the world to set up a National AIDS Commission to oversee the first ever Multi- Sectoral response. This is a model that was adopted by the United Nations by setting up the UNAIDS and many countries including Tanzania. The countries like Kenya and Zambia that adopted and diverted by having their commissions moved to be under the Ministries of Health are struggling with the epidemic while Uganda continues to be a success story.
Dr. Lydia Mungherera of Mamas Club adds her voice to this saying “Being a Self-Coordinatingntity under the UAC structure, we believe that dissolving the AIDS Commission at this time would be a major strategic mistake that will lead to a reversal in the gains that Uganda has started to make and would negatively impact the PLHIV constituency, communities and the population at large.”
Ms. Lillian Mworeko supplemented saying “Thirty four years into the HIV&AIDS epidemic, Parliament should not commit a costly mistake and take us backwards.”
“As People Living with HIV, we demand that Uganda AIDS Commission remains as a standalone entity coordinating the HIV response at all levels for the betterment of PLHIV which the Ministry of Health’s ACP is not mandated to do.” Ms. Milly Katana, an HIV Activist said.
The constituency of 1.4 million people concluded by calling upon legislators and duty bearers at different levels to resist the move to dissolve the Uganda AIDS Commission in order to continue steadily with the crusade against AIDS.
FULL PRESS STATEMENT:[Download not found]
