by
Meg Davis
The
strategic plan is the most important document of your organization. It defines
who you are and why you do what you do. It ties all your work into your vision
for the future. This is how we and the groups we train create a strategic plan.
You might want to print out the model we use to look at while you read this (in English here, in Chinese here).*
January 2010
Happy New Year!
Here's the latest from our new Brooklyn office. Please help spread the word - we're looking for graduate and undergraduate interns for spring and summer 2010. Details all the way down.
Check out the new website launched by Paulo Longo Research Institute in honor of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (yes, there really is a day for everything), www.plri.org. The site looks like a good resource for news and information on sex work, harm reduction and human rights issues. A recent wander through the site turned up these things:
The site was just launched yesterday, so there aren't a huge number of entries yet; hopefully these will be filled out as the site develops. It would also be great if links below the abstracts led you right to the article - some just link to the host website. Put this together with AIDSLEX, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network's new site on AIDS law, and finding resources on AIDS and human rights online just got a little bit easier.
Today and tomorrow, December 14-15, the executive board of UNITAID will vote on whether to move forward with plans for a patent pool. A patent pool is a consortium of companies that share a license to a particular product or technology. In this case, manufacturers of AIDS drugs would give a limited number of generic manufacturers the right to produce those drugs. Competition between the generic manufacturers would then drive down the price of drugs in countries where many people currently cannot afford AIDS drugs.
Controversy has roiled over the patent pool idea since some have suggested that middle-income countries should be excluded. A lot of those countries are in Asia; see this letter from APN+, the network of people living with HIV in Asia, which clearly lays out the issues.
The Cambodian government is attempting to coerce local NGOs to test an unproven medication on drug users, according to materials obtained by Asia Catalyst. Authorities have threatened to shut down NGOs that refuse to administer the drug, and arrest drug users who refuse to take the test.
"International experience has shown that nongovernmental organisations are critical to the fight against HIV/AIDS. But in practice, and despite the public promises of many world leaders, AIDS NGOs often face obstacles on the ground. In Cambodia, a proposed new law risks making it harder for these groups to do their work. NGOs need regulation, but not regulations so burdensome as to entangle them in bureaucracy and drive them underground - as is threatening to happen in other parts of Asia."
Read the full text of our World AIDS Day op-ed in the Phnom Penh Post.
UNAIDS Executive Secretary Michel Sidibe's trip to China got off to a strong start today with a round of meetings with Chinese NGOs. He began with
an awards ceremony given by International Treatment Preparedness Coalition in Shanghai. Over lunch, he heard from representatives of NGOs, including sex workers and drug users, about the challenges they face doing their work, and the need for more government cooperation with civil society.
In an open letter in August, Asia Catalyst and over 30 international AIDS and human rights organizations called on UNAIDS to speak out against restrictions on civil society. NGOs in China are growing despite burdensome restrictions on registration, censorship, and on individual AIDS activists.
