The network: How it all began

Action against AIDS is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year!

Two occurrences prompted the establishment of the network. The United Nations Special Session on HIV/Aids (UNGASS) in 2001 declared HIV and AIDS a global emergency and set up time-bound targets for countries to meet. As well, after a trip to Southern Africa in 2000, the Head of the Protestant Church in Germany demanded that church based organisations do more about HIV and AIDS. As a result, various church development agencies, NGOs and civil society organisations in Germany set up ‘Action against AIDS’. Many of the groups which had been involved in the debt cancellation campaign were re-activated, and over the years the network has grown to 100 NGOs (Aids Service Organisations, Development Agencies, Faith-Based Organisations) and about 260 Grassroots Organisations. AgA is the leading advocacy network on global HIV and AIDS issues in Germany and works towards achieving universal access in the area of treatment, care, support and prevention of HIV and AIDS.

Its objectives, tools and resources

From its inception in 2002 Aga has lobbied the German Government to make a fair financial as well as political contribution to the global response to HIV and AIDS and it has lobbied the pharmaceutical industry to ensure life-long treatment for adults and children in developing countries at affordable prices.

Tools include public campaigns, press statements, publications and other forms of awareness-raising as well as political and pharmaceutical lobby work. As a national network, AgA brings together a wide variety of specific experiences and the expertise of German Aids Service Organisations, People living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA), secular and faith-based Development Organisations as well as small action groups. AgA is frequently consulted by the German Parliament, the respective Governmental Ministries and the German media. It also monitors the governmental agenda on HIV very closely and publicly speaks out on questionable decisions by the Government. AgA is also seen as a watchdog by the pharmaceutical industry.

AgA is funded mainly through membership fees and project-grants from partnering development organisations. This enables the network to be truly independent, which strengthens its capacity of doing effective lobby and advocacy work.

Cornerstones of AgA’s work

Publications

AgA has issued its own detailed reports analysing Germany’s financial contributions to health and HIV for achieving the MDG’s. These reports have been of vital interest as a lobby tool for civil society within Germany and in other countries and has also been acknowledged as an important piece of work by the German Ministry for Development.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM)

Since early 2011 the German Development Ministry has been hesitant to pay out the promised instalments to the Global Fund honing in on the accounting problems in a handful of countries which the Global Fund itself had made public in 2010. AgA issued numerous press releases, lobbied Government and started a campaign which put pressure on the Development Ministry to keep its promise and pay out the instalment which it did in the end. AgA’s demands were supported and echoed by all political opposition parties.

Campaigning

AgA has carried out a number of political and pharmaceutical campaigns. The most successful one was a campaign aimed at Big Pharma and demanded lower prices for ARVs in developing countries, investment in paediatric formulations and a non-enforcement of patents of their ARVs in developing countries. The medical boxes on which the demands were written were signed by 280,000 people. The hand-over made it into the prime-time news in Germany. Prices for ARVs were reduced further and one of the German pharma companies did not enforce their patents in India.

Our latest campaign is about the prevention of the HI-Virus from mother to child (PMTCT).

United we are strong

The close collaboration with European, Latin American, Asian and African Advocacy networks has made it possible to coordinate actions across the world for demanding more resources for the response to HIV and AIDS worldwide, and for dealing with trade barriers like ACTA or the EU-India Free Trade Agreement on the access to ARVs. The international collaboration has also led to organising symposia to assess developments like 10 years of DOHA from a worldwide perspective.

AgA draws its strength from a very specialized technical knowledge on HIV issues coupled with on the ground information from various developing countries as well as the mobilisation of the German public to support its demands.

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Contact

Action against AIDS
in Tübingen
Paul-Lechler-Str. 24
72076 Tübingen
Germany

T +49 7071 206 504
F +49 7071 206 510

Action against AIDS
in Berlin
Chausseestr. 128/129
10115 Berlin
Germany

T +49 30 2758 2403
F +49 30 2758 2413
info@aids-kampagne.de

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