US Ambassador Birx to deliver keynote address to PANCAP 13th AGM

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)     — Under the theme, “Positioning the Partnership for Post-2015,” more than one hundred representatives of the  Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) will meet for the 13th Annual General Meeting of the Partnership, on 3-4 November 2014, in Guadeloupe.
World re-known expert on HIV and Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator of the United States Government activities to combat HIV & AIDS globally, Deborah L. Birx, M.D, will deliver the keynote address at the official opening on November 3.   Kofi Annan, seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, will also address the gathering via video.
This is the first time that an Annual General Meeting of PANCAP is being held in a French Caribbean territory and Guadeloupe is very excited to host. Among the key contributors to the meeting are Interreg IV Caraibes, L’Europe S’engage and Centre Hospitalier Pointe-à-Pitre. This 13th AGM provides  a  great opportunity for Guadeloupe to showcase the French Caribbean’s role in the collective effort against HIV. Dr. Marie Therese Goerger-Sow, Chief Project Manager, INTERREG Caraibes Project will welcome PANCAP on behalf of Guadeloupe.
The PANCAP Executive Board recently endorsed the PANCAP  Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework (CRSF), 2014-2018. This Framework will guide the work of  the Partnership of governmental and nongovernmental organisations over the next approximately four years.
An important discussion during the meeting is what this Framework means for the Partnership in the context of achieving its goals.  According to Prof. Edward Greene, UN Secretary General Special Envoy for HIV in the Caribbean, “…this AGM must seize the moment to align the outcomes of the Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework with the region’s position  on AIDS in the post-2015 development goals.”
In addition to the agencies in Guadeloupe, the German Corporation, with its implementing bodies, GIZ and KfW, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are sponsors of the  PANCAP 13th AGM.
PANCAP is a sixty-two member Partnership which was established by CARICOM Heads of Government in 2001 to respond to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean.
Visit us online at www.pancap.org, follow us on Twitter @PANCAPORG and #PANCAP_AGM13 and on Facebook at facebook/PANCAPNetwork.