Women Religious Leaders Take a Stand with Male Counterparts Responding to AIDS in the Arab Region
Cairo, 7 November 2006— The Second Regional Religious Leaders Forum in Response to HIV/AIDS in the Arab States was inaugurated in Cairo today. The Forum brings together over 300 leaders from the 20-state Arab Region including for the first time more than 60 Arab women religious leaders. Leaders will meet over the course of four days to address critical issues, taboos and to build the first-ever Arab network of faith-based leadership responding to AIDS. Under the auspices of the League of Arab States, the Forum is being organized by UNDP HIV/AIDS Regional Programme in the Arab States (HARPAS).
“If we do not respond to the serious development challenge of AIDS in the Arab Region with unprecedented urgency and unity, the epidemic will reverse economic and development gains by decades. It will weaken our workforce and could cost the region 35% of our GDP in the next 25 years. It can threaten the security of the entire region,” stated H.E. Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the League of Arab States at the Opening Ceremony
Since the beginning of this effort to mobilize faith-based institutions, high-level religious leaders from diverse sects, countries and backgrounds have stood in solidarity regarding the urgent need for a proactive response building on gains made across the region. H.E. Mohamed Sayed Tantawy, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque and His Holiness Pope Shenouda, III Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church and President of the Middle East Council of Churches signed onto the historic Cairo Declaration in 2004 and have voiced support for the building of a regional faith based network responding to AIDS.
“Since the signing of the historic Cairo and Tripoli Declarations, Arab Religious Leaders have responded to the challenge of AIDS in the region with unprecedented unity and compassion,” said Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, UN Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director for the UNDP’s Regional Bureau for the Arab States. “These leaders have made tremendous strides towards not only achieving Millennium Development Goal 6 to reverse the sharp increase we are seeing in HIV infection, but also in reaching the overall vision of the MDGs of preserving human dignity and putting an end to extreme poverty through education, health, equal opportunity and human development.”
The Arab States region has one of the fastest growing HIV infection rates in the world with heightened risk factors due to conflict, gender disparity and poverty in the region. Every ten minutes someone is infected with HIV in the Arab States and women now make up half of those infected. Over 90% of HIV positive people in the region do not have means to know their HIV status let alone access to support and treatment.
“We cannot ignore the feminization of the epidemic,” said Dr. Mongia Souahi, National Senator and Professor of Quran, at El Zitouna University, Tunsia. “Women are becoming increasingly vulnerable and so are central to the solution in our region. As Religious Leaders we have a serious role to play and must respond in solidarity.”
The Regional Forum is the first of its kind in the Arab world- now calling on women religious leaders for the first time to join their male Christian and Muslim counterparts addressing critical gender, development, human rights and governance issues surrounding the growing AIDS situation in the region.
For further information, please contact:
Mr. Noeman AlSayyad
Head of Information, Communication & Reporting Unit
UNDP Egypt, Country Office - Cairo
Phone/office: +202-578-4847 ext. 109
Fax: +202-578-4847
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Khadija T. Moalla
UNDP/HARPAS Regional Coordinator
UNDP/HARPAS, Cairo
Phone/mobile: +2-(0)10-140-2016
Fax : +202-578-4847
E-mail: [email protected]
Ms. Amy Kay
UNDP/HARPAS Regional Programme Officer
UNDP/HARPAS, Cairo
Phone/mobile: +2-(0)12-541-4755
Phone/office : +202-578-4840 ext. 290
Fax: +202-578-4847
E-mail: [email protected]
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.
The UNDP’s HIV/AIDS Regional Programme in the Arab States (HARPAS) serves 20 states in the Arab region responding to AIDS as a governance, human rights, development and gender issue. HARPAS focuses on the attainment of Millennium Development Goal #6 by halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, and the goals set by the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. Capacity-building activities are undertaken in response to specific requests from UNDP Country Offices and our stakeholders, in partnership with Bureau for Development Policy (BDP) HIV/AIDS Group, Regional Bureau, the UNAIDS Secretariat and Cosponsors, and other partners.
Source: UNDP, Nov 7, 2006