Letter from the Executive Director

Dear all,

It is an exciting month for aids2031, as our first working group report is launched in Bali at the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. The report, Asian Economies in Rapid Transition: HIV Now and Through 2031, touches on issues addressed by a number of the working groups - from the social and structural drivers of the epidemic to financing and leadership in a rapidly changed and changing technological and communications environment. Social change can have both positive and negative implications, as the report reveals, and economic change does not necessarily bring along social change without the needed political will.

Young people sit on the cusp of social change in both navigating it and driving it, and one of the other big events of the summer was the 2nd aids2031 Young Leaders Summit.

I urge you to go to the aids2031 website and see what young leaders are building for the future of AIDS. I cannot start to do it justice in this small space!

Best wishes,

Heidi Larson, PhD
Executive Director of aids2031

Working Group News & Notes

aids2031 working paper series in full swing

The aids2031 website now houses twenty-three white papers, featuring work from the Leadership, Cost and Financing, Social Drivers, and Science and Technology working groups. Papers include;

The evolution and future of donor assistance for HIV/AIDS, by Laurie Garrett and Kammerle Schneider

Transnational networks of influence in South African AIDS treatment activism, by Eduard Grebe

Know your Global Crisis: What the AIDS industry might learn from the population story, by Ellen E. Foley and Anne Hendrixson

For a complete list of papers, please visit www.aids2031.org.

Sex, Rights & the Law in a World of AIDS meeting recommendations released

The Social Drivers working group held a meeting in February 2009 in Mexico to examine why HIV prevention efforts continue to fall far short of goals to stop the sexual transmission of HIV.

Some of the recommendations from the meeting include:

• Establish minimum legal standards to reduce vulnerability and enable the development of AIDS resilience.
• Prioritize structural approaches within the context of national responses.
• Strive for greater precision in use of terminology.

The full meeting report and recommendations are available here. The abstracts submitted by AIDS thinkers and practitioners for the meeting are also available online.

Social networking & AIDS communication

The aids2031 Communication working group released preliminary findings to kick-off the aids2031-led panel conversation on social networking and AIDS communication at the July 2009 International Association for Media and Communication Research's annual conference in Mexico City. The panel included a discussion of research carried out by the working group into how young people engage with social networking sites in Brazil, India, South Africa, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

The social network research, called "Future Connect: Social Networking and AIDS Communication," was presented by information and communication specialist Pete Cranston (http://www.slideshare.net/petecranston/social-networking-and-hiv-aids-communications-01). It was accompanied by presentations on Social Media and Youth Mobilization on AIDS by Mexican youth AIDS activist Pablo Torres Aguilera, Mexico country representative of Young People We Care and the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, and on Internet, Social Media and NGOs in Mexico by Oscar Alarcón of Rostros y Voces.

Panel and audience discussion highlighted the opportunities offered by social networks to engage and mobilize young people and share health messages. In some countries the 'generation gap' - between older generations and young people who use social networks as an intrinsic part of their daily life - is outstripping the disparities caused by the North-South digital divide. But panelists and contributors also recognized the potential risks if the increasing global access to digital communication technologies is not accompanied by the development of social and peer support systems and controls, and a corresponding increase in availability of accurate, accessible and appropriate information online.