The National Assembly of Zambia in partnership with the National HIV/AIDS STI/TB Council has organised, under the SADC Parliamentary Forum project on Sustainable Financing, a staff capacity building workshop on the implementation of regional, continental and international commitments on HIV/AIDS financing.

The two days workshop, that was officially opened on Thursday, 1^st September, 2016 in Chongwe has drawn staff from the National Assembly of Zambia and line Ministries to deliberate on Sustainable HIV Financing which is widely acknowledged as one of the Universal remedies in “Financing the end of AIDS”.

Speaking when he officially opened the workshop, National Assembly of Zambia Acting Deputy Clerk (Procedure), Mr Roy Ngulube reiterated the need for continuous and concerted efforts in building the capacity of staff in order to stimulate parliamentarians to enact laws as well as oversee the implementation of the laws and policies that are related to sustainable HIV/AIDS financing.  He added that it is important for Parliaments to facilitate the implementation of Regional and International Commitments on HIV/AIDS financing which include among others, the Abuja declaration which calls upon all African States to allocate at least 15% of their national budgets to the health sector.

And speaking during the same occasion, UNAIDS Country Director Dr Medhin Tsehaiu said the United Nations has launched the Zambia-UN Sustainable Development Partnership Framework (2016-2021) to provide coordinated support to the national development efforts of the country which includes the national AIDS response.  She added that, she was optimistic that the capacity development workshop would equip staff with necessary information and knowledge about Zambia’s AIDS response, the regional and global commitments that the country has signed up in order for them to support the newly elected Members of Parliament in the implementation of the SADC Sustainable Financing Project and beyond.

Meanwhile, National HIV/AIDS STI/TB Council Director General, Dr Jabbin Mulwanda informed the gathering that the various commitments made on HIV require significant investment in terms of resources.  However, over the years, external contribution to the response in terms of financing had continued to dwindle and therefore, demanding alternative sources of funding in order to meet the vision of ending AIDS as public health problem by the year 2030.  In this regard, he stressed the importance of building capacity of staff towards the success of the SADC Parliamentary Forum HIV Sustainable Financing Project which specifically aims at strengthening the technical capacity of parliamentary portfolio committees to advocate and work towards realizing sustainable financing for HIV.