Community Support Team to the UNITAID Board September 28, 2008

Call for Applications to join Community Support Team to UNITAID
Activists living with HIV, TB and/or affected by Malaria:
Please join the Community Support Team to the UNITAID Board

CLOSING DATE for all applications is Tuesday 7th October 2008 at 17h00 GMT.
Contents of this Call for Applications:
1. What is “UNITAID”?
2. What is the “Community delegation to the UNITAID Board”?
3. What is the “Community Support Team”? What is the role of these advisors?
4. How do I apply?
1. What is UNITAID?
UNITAID is an international institution against AIDS, TB and malaria. Its main job is to reduce the prices of drugs and diagnostics used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. UNITAID has already obtained a reduction in 50% of the price of the most expensive second-line HIV medicines.
To learn more, please visit www.unitaid.eu
2. What is the community delegation to the UNITAID Board?
The communities of people living with HIB, TB and/or affected by malaria have a voting seat on the Board of UNITAID. This seat is embodied in 1 Board member for Communities, assisted of 1 Alternate. Their voice contributes to making UNITAID’s funding and strategy decisions. They have equal formal power to make UNITAID decisions as the donors of UNITAID.
The community delegates to the UNITAID Board were selected in September 2006 by a panel composed of 1 member of the Communities delegation to the Global Fund Board, 1 member of the developing countries NGO delegation to the Global Fund Board, and 1 member of the developed countries NGO delegation to the Global Fund Board. At present the UNITAID Board member for Communities is Carol Nawina Nyirenda, an activist living with HIV and affected by TB and malaria in Lusaka, affiliated with Zambian activist groups Treatment Advocacy & Literacy Campaign (TALC) and Community Initiative for Tuberculosis, HIV & AIDS, and Malaria plus related issues (CITAM+).
3. What is the Community Support Team to the community representatives on the UNITAID Board?
The community delegates on the Board aim to represent not just themselves or their own group, but the whole constituency of people infected and affected by the three diseases. In order to attain this goal, the delegates need to be in regular interaction with other people in their constituency who follow the specific issues that UNITAID deals with, and receive from them input to convey to the UNITAID Board, as well as give them feedback about what is going on in UNITAID and how these events might affect communities.
Thus, the community delegates to the UNITAID Board need the support of community representatives and advisors who can give them input and receive feedback from them.
Also, the community delegation is currently missing an Alternate Board member, who will be selected among the most helpful of the advisors. Like in 2006, the selection of this Alternate Board member will be entrusted to an independent panel of community activists, who have been following UNITAID but do not wish to serve on the UNITAID Board.
4. How do I apply to join the UNITAID Community Support Team?
Basically you send a CV and a letter of motivation. See the annex for the minutiae of the applying process.
Your application will be reviewed by:
- The current Communities Board member whom you would be advising;
- A leader of the community of people affected by and fighting against malaria, who has taken part, as an a non-speaking observer, in most of the UNITAID Board meetings;
- A leader of the community of people living with HIV, who has been supporting the community delegation to the Boards of both the Global Fund and UNITAID;
- A member of Network of African People Living with HIV, NAP+
- The liaison officer who has been hired September 1st 2008 to support both the Communities delegation and the NGO delegation at UNITAID, and who will be organizing both the future community support team and the upcoming application review.
For further information on the role of a Community Support Team member/send completed applications, please contact;
Carol Nyirenda (UNITAID Communities Board Member) carolnawina@yahoo.com
Robert Doble (UNITAID Liaison Officer) Rdoble@oxfam.org.uk
Please also contact the UNITAID website for further information about the UNITAID www.unitaid.eu

Sincerely,

UNITAID Civil Society Board Members

Official Website: http://www.unitaid.eu