[NEWS] UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights Statement on Crisis of HIV Funding

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Geneva, 30 January 2012 – The November 2011 announcement of the cancellation of the 11th round of funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria because of the Fund’s financial difficulties presents the international community with both a health and a human rights crisis.  Since its first round of funding in 2002, the Global Fund has played an indispensable role in advancing the health and human rights goals of the global HIV response.

The Global Fund’s financial difficulties are part of a broader global HIV funding crisis. This funding crisis is the most important human rights issue in the HIV response at this time. Paradoxically, funding is being flat-lined or reduced just as science, medicine and programmes are providing the tools for success against HIV.

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[RESOURCE] Managing Conflicts

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By Mike Frick

In previous posts, we’ve described our approach to creating a strategic plan, writing a budget and managing volunteers – the three core skill areas covered by our nonprofit coaching programs in China. We believe that facilitating meetings is another essential skill for nonprofit groups, and that effective meeting facilitation requires solving conflicts in a fair, transparent and non-threatening manner.

Many of our partners in China describe their frustration attending meetings that too frequently devolve into off topic conversations, meandering discussions or sometimes even personal attacks. Given all of the time we spend in meetings, we’ve developed an approach that facilitators can use to keep meetings on track and defuse conflicts. We’ve divided these techniques into low, medium and high level “interventions” that start small and progressively build to more direct action depending on the seriousness of the situation. Starting with smaller, less-threatening interventions helps to build a sense of trust and safety for all involved; higher level interventions should only be used when other approaches have proved ineffective at solving the problem.

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[REPORT] Report on the Impact of China’s 2010 “Strike Hard Campaign”: A Crackdown on Sex Work

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The 2010 “Strike Hard Campaign” put in place a zero tolerance policy on sex work, gambling and drugs all across China. While many brothels and popular clubs were closed ultimately sex workers continued work out in more remote areas. This geographic shift cut people off from essential health services, HIV/AIDS education, and even funeral services for women who die while cut off from their families.

Here in its first major report The China Sex Worker Organization Network Forum trained its members to document the effects of the crackdown. With interviews with close to 300 sex workers from around the country the report documents how “local stakeholders, including sex workers, owners of EEs and sex worker service organizations, see the impacts of these crackdowns and their effects on HIV intervention.”

The report (here in its original in Chinese and translated by volunteers in the network into English here), published in December 2011, finds that the crackdown was a disaster for them.

[NEWS] Week of Jan 20, 2012

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1.
[China Dialogue] What the smog can’t conceal 
(English)
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4734-What-the-smog-can-t-conceal-
(Chinese)
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/4734-What-the-smog-can-t-conceal-

Since
the autumn, a series of polluted “hazes” in cities across China –
and discussion of that now ubiquitous term for fine particulate
matter, PM2.5 – have attracted widespread public attention. So too
has the official response: while urban air pollution fast became a
focus of public anger, the Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP), which is responsible for monitoring air quality, took the
opportunity to show its sluggish and bureaucratic side.

2.
[Blog | New Yorker] The Chinese View of
SOPA
https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/01/the-chinese-view-of-sopa.html

In
China, the reaction to American protests has ranged from sympathy to
gentle Schadenfreude. A commentator known as Dr. Zhang wrote on
Weibo, the Twitter-like micro-blogging site: “I’ve come up with a
perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated
media, and we’ll go to America to discuss politically sensitive
subjects.”

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