UNAIDS, as co-sponsor of the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), takes great pleasure in supporting Indonesia’s hosting of the 9th ICAAP scheduled to be held from 9 to 13 August 2009. This even comes one year before the end point for the achievement of Universal Access targets in 2010. The Congress will clearly provide us with a great opportunity to take note of progress made, identify common challenges, share innovative solutions and renew commitments.

The 9th ICAAP promises to be even more exciting, inclusive and path-breaking – a wide range of issues are being addressed related to the region’s effort to expand access to prevention, treatment and support and it has attracted an unprecedented level of interest from the civil society groups, community organizations, national governments and the United Nations family. The UN family has also taken this opportunity to showcase what they and other partners have achieved since the 8th ICAAP in August 2007 and to share the lessons learnt. This is also the first time the UNAIDS family – the Secretariat and its ten cosponsoring agencies – have coordinated jointly in planning their sessions so as minimize duplication and to ensure that important priorities are addressed.

You are cordially invited to the UN family sessions featured in this programme booklet. The booklet is designed for ease of reference by first providing a day-by-day listing of all the sessions, followed by detailed session outlines, which provide information on session objectives, the names of the chairs, the names of the invited speakers and the presentation topic titles.

Please also note that the UN also has a joint exhibition booth located on the first floor of the Bali International Convention Center which will display publications and other information materials published by the UNAIDS cosponsors and other major partners. Working together is what UNAIDS is about, and the spirit of the joint programme is best captured by the Balinese proverb: ‘sagilik saguluk paras paros sarpanaya selunglung sebayantaka’, or “Together we struggle, respect each other, help each other and go through good and bad times.”

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