The delegates of the WHO Committee en route to an agreement

Rome,11 March 2013 - The delegates have convened at LUISS University to further discuss and debate the issues tackled by the WHO. 

Throughout the second day of work, the delegates of WHO committee have been trying to agree about the final resolution. The draft resolution has shown the common willingness of an education program and campaigns through software, a strong prevention of HIV, medical assistance and also a global fund. Despite this, many clauses are still controversed, but the delegates during the unmoderated caucus we have witnessed, seemed to be highly motivated to find a good balance among the proposals. China, Kuwait and North Korea, for example, argued about whether to add the formula "sexual education" in the operative clauses about combating HIV and other major diseases. China was against such expressions and suggested to replace it with "family-planning measures".  

The financial aspect of the discussion has similarly divided the delegates : the representatives failed to reach an agreement about the amount of money (1% of GDP) to contribute for the creation of an international fund dedicated to the fight against HIV, and the measures and methods of investing the financial aid already provided. Nonetheless, all members agreed to gradually increase the global HIV fund instead of creating an international bank.  At the end of a fruitful  debate all the delegates contributed actively, especially the delegation of Albania: they suggested several times proposals in order to focus the attention on prostitution and sex workers with regards to HIV issue.   

The resolution paper for the first topic proposed mostly focused on solutions for the HIV issue, but after a request from Honduras' delegate, a point concerning the prevention of other diseases was also included in the discussion. 

During the conference, two emendments proposed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have been approved: one concerning the monitoring of water sources to prevent the spread of malaria and another one to continue the vaccination against tuberculosis, malaria and polio in the affected, often rural, areas. Another important aspect that emerged from the meeting is the impact of civil society - for instance the role played by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation, the David and Victoria Beckham and the Qatar Foundation - in sponsoring the fight against HIV.  

 Once again, the delegates debated and negotiated to reach an agreement that in the next two days will hopefully be finalized. The document will hopefully bind the participant countries in the fight against HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other deadly illnesses that cripple wealthy but most importantly poor societies. Because, although in different ways, the issues tackled by the WHO are problems that concern us all as citizens of the world.  

Also during the last day of work, the WHO Committee underlined the importance of collaboration between countries. The most interesting points of the resolution dealt with discounting drugs' prices reducing the importation taxes and increasing those on alcohol and tobacco, in order to use this income to finance researches; this could also be achieved by focusing the WHO's attention on regional organizations like MERCOSUR and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Moreover there is a cultural problem: the population of poor areas is often not aware of the possibility to have access to medicines. 

To improve the situation, delegates proposed to create some information programs about everyone's right to medical assistance. According to the delegates, this could be achieved by fostering public-private partnerships, also possibly setting up a Food and Drug Authority to increase the control on illegal drugs entering the country. During the discussion, small disagreements – raised by the Albanian delegate – among the signatories relented the process. Despite this, the delegates managed to reach an overall agreement that will hopefully set the international community's agenda to ensure the achievement of the MDG and the eradication of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other illnesses by 2015. The negotiations have now ended and the delegates await the closing ceremony to be held tomorrow.

Article written by:

 Jessica di Paolo 

Chiara Zanchetta 

Chiara Ravazzotto 

Marta Lamalfa 

Ernest Amankwah 

Isotta Rodriguez Pereira 

Alessia Pascazio (BBC)