National AIDS Authority, in collaboration with HP+, organized a workshop, on
On the morning of Monday, August 3, 2020, starting at 0800 am at Phnom Penh Hotel, the National AIDS Authority, in collaboration with HP+, organized a workshop, on "Social Contracting for Civil Society Working in Response to HIV and AIDS in Cambodia," under the presidency of the NAA Chair, Senior Minister HE Ieng Mouly.
In attendance at the workshop was a group of 50 Excellencies, Lok Chumteavs, ladies, gentlemen, and misses, the representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Ministry of Health, UNAIDS, USAID, PEPFAR, ministries, institutions, development partners, relevant international organizations, and civil society organizations as well as top NAA managers and officials.
In his address via video conference at the opening ceremony, Dr. John Eyres, director of the Health Office for the US Agency for International Development, stated that Cambodia is a small country that has achieved the 90-90-90 targets and is stepping forward towards reaching the 95-95-95 targets. Along with this, the civil society organizations, too, have been provided with funds from outside to work in response to HIV and AIDS. Finally, he stated that Cambodia would succeed in eradicating HIV. He also stated that Cambodia would ultimately succeed in eradicating HIV.
Next, Dr. Vladanka Andreeva, UNAIDS country director to Cambodia, stated that not only is Cambodia the first nation among the countries that have achieved the 90-90-90 targets, but it is also the first country in the Asia-Pacific region that has developed a roadmap towards a sustainable end to AIDS by 2025. One of the points of the roadmap is the provision of support to enable civil society organizations to respond sustainably to HIV and AIDS.
In his workshop opening speech, Senior Minister HE Ieng Mouly stated that over the more than past three decades, Cambodia has relied heavily on external funds to respond to HIV and AIDS. For instance, in 2017, of the total expenditure of US$34.4 million for HIV/AIDS response, the national budged was only US$8.1 million or 24%. The assessment report on the total expenditure on AIDS in Cambodia in 2017 showed that the civil society organizations received a budget of nearly US$11 million that was almost all foreign funding.
His Excellency the Senior Minister emphasized that the success in fighting against AIDS in Cambodia is attributed to the leadership, partnership, and investment. The Royal Government has started investing more than US$11 million to respond to HIV/AIDS for the next three years. This is the strong intention to end AIDS in Cambodia. Meanwhile, we are still in need of international aid. Due to COVID-19 pressure, we are hopeless to secure national budget for civil society organizations in 2021 and 2022. However, our today’s meeting is to consider from now how to provide funds to civil society organizations, not just waiting to think about it only when the external financial support is no longer in existence.
At the end, His Excellency the Senior Minister stressed that today’s meeting is in need of more inputs. We should consider whether the Social Contracting contradicts the existing regulations so we are able to ready ourselves once the external financial support ceases to exist. If we start pondering now and joining hands to prevent HIV spread by containing new cases to less than 360 annually, we then will score success towards eradicating AIDS once for all.
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