The mission of the World AIDS Campaign is to support community at all levels to bring the need for action on HIV and AIDS to those in power. WAC is governed by a committee of global constituency-based networks and works from bases in Cape Town, South Africa and in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Function

The World AIDS Campaign was established to strengthen and connect the advocacy and campaigning activities of civil society in order to target governments and other stakeholders to deliver on their promises and commitments on HIV and AIDS. Whether the campaigning, advocacy and lobbying involves politicians, policy makers, the donor community or indeed a multilateral agency or civil society, the aim is to create a unified and diverse voice on the need to take the action necessary to scale up the response to HIV.

History

The concept of a World AIDS Campaign was launched in 1997, initially managed by UNAIDS and focusing on raising public awareness on specific issues related to HIV and AIDS. In part because the UNGASS declaration of 2001 focused the HIV debate more on national-level performance, and on lobbying to ensure delivery of that, in 2004 the World AIDS Campaign became an independent NGO with a legal status in The Netherlands and (latterly) in South Africa.

Since then the agency has worked on developing three streams of work, around global communication (centred on World AIDS Day), in-country and regional work around delivery of the UNGASS commitments ("Universal Access") and strengthening global networking around HIV. It has expanded rapidly since late 2008.

Currently World AIDS Campaign:

• Supports the development of inclusive HIV/AIDS-focussed campaigns at global, national and regional level;
• Organises skill-building and knowledge-building for campaigners;
• Ensures that key global networks representing communities of interest have the information and links they need on HIV/AIDS and
• Advises on the best way of achieving necessary change on HIV/AIDS through the political system.

…while seeing HIV/AIDS from the perspective of an agency with most of its staff based in the Global South, and with close relationships with sectors and in countries and regions most affected by the epidemic

World AIDS Campaign will implement in the Republic of Moldova the project "HIV Leadership through Accountability", during the period of 2009–2011. The project includes:

• Supporting people living with HIV networks to strengthen evidence-base advocacy, policy and programming and strengthen their participation in national processes and mechanisms;
• Creating an enabling environment and the platforms which can support a strengthened coordination and participation of civil society in the development of advocacy and effective responses.