Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be the keynote speaker at the opening of the tenth Annual General Meeting of the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) to be held at Sonesta Maho Beach Resort and Casino in St. Maarten from October 31 to November 2, 2010. The opening ceremony starts at 6:30pm. The meeting, organized around under the theme “Reflection and Renewal,” includes three special plenary sessions that reflect on the key successes and challenges of the partnership and define the essential agenda for its progress. The official opening includes the inauguration of the PANCAP Award, which will be given to Caribbean citizens for their outstanding contributions to the region’s response to reverse the spread of the HIV and AIDS epidemic over the past 10 years. PANCAP will also confer the Juanita Altenberg Award.
At the opening ceremony, Caribbean Community Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington and Global Fund Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine will also sign the PANCAP/Global Fund Round 9 Agreement on behalf of their respective institutions at the opening ceremony. PANCAP has received US $31 million from that initiative.
Annan will address Caribbean heads of state, government officials, and other participants. Key leaders in the region will also deliver speeches. Some of the speakers include PANCAP Chair and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, St. Maarten Prime Minister Sarah Westcot-Williams, and Dr. Kazatchkine.
Michel D. Kazatchkine became Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in April 2007. The Global Fund, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is the world’s leading multilateral financier of programs for the three diseases and one of the major financiers of health systems strengthening. Dr Kazatchkine has spent the past 25 years fighting AIDS as a leading physician, researcher, administrator, advocate, policy maker, and diplomat.
PANCAP is a regional partnership established in February 2001 to respond to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean. Its vision is to reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean through sustainable systems of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. Its goals are, by 2012, to reduce the estimated number of new infections, HIV mortality, and the social and economic impact of HIV and AIDS on households by 25 per cent.
For full article, see
http://www.thedailyherald.com/islands/1-islands-news/9293-kofi-annan-to-address-pancap-10th-agm.html
For more information on The Global Fund, see
http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/secretariat/director/biography/
For more information on PANCAP, see
http://www.pancap.org/pancap/
