At the 2001 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS

At the 2001 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), Member States agreed to regularly review progress made in national responses to HIV. This article provides a brief overview of how the resultant global UNGASS reporting system was developed; the origins, background, limitations and potential of that system; an overview of the articles in this supplement; and crosscutting institutional and methodological issues. The United Nations Member States biennially provide The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) with data on 25 core indicators of national responses to HIV, collected in Country Progress Reports. This article critically reviews and interprets these data in light of international political considerations and overall data needs. There has been a considerable improvement in response rates, accompanied by an increase in data quality and completeness. Both nationally and internationally, the UNGASS process is viewed as being more substantial and important than a reporting exercise to the United Nations General Assembly. The process has catalyzed the development of national monitoring systems and has created opportunities for civil society to monitor and challenge government commitments and deeds. Although the UNGASS global reporting system now comprises an unequalled wealth of data on HIV responses, collected from a broad range of countries, it cannot yet answer several critical questions about the progress and effectiveness of those responses. Evaluation studies that go beyond indicator monitoring are needed, but they will take time to design, fund, implement and interpret. In the meantime, this global monitoring system provides a good indication of the overall progress in the global response to HIV and whether Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 (to halt and reverse the HIV epidemic) is likely to be reached by 2015.

Providing an overview of the monitoring effort underway to track progress toward achieving the 2001 UNGASS Declaration of Commitment, Universal Access by 2010, and Millennium Development Goal 6 by 2015, this article sets the stage for 10 accompanying related papers. There has been significant progress in harmonising indicators and reporting schedules, and strengthening rather than bypassing or overburdening domestic monitoring systems and capacities. However, tensions between, on the one hand, the need for locally useful data to inform programming decisions and improve accountability toward beneficiaries and, on the other hand, the need for data to meet national and international reporting requirements should be acknowledged and addressed. Effective implementation of evidence-informed appropriate HIV prevention, treatment, care and support programmes at scale, with feedback loops to improve quality and outputs, will translate into fewer HIV infections and longer, more productive lives for people living with HIV. Monitoring and evaluation play a supportive but essential role in keeping the train on the track.