Youth adopt HIV/AIDS strategic plan

The Pan-African Youth Organisation Against HIV/AIDS (PAYA) adopted on Friday a five-year strategic plan to help stop the spread of HIV on the continent. Representatives from all 20 countries who attended the five-day conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, endorsed PAYA's campaign. The five-year plan involves institutional development (strengthening PAYA's operational capacity at all levels), networking and advocacy in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It was hoped that signing protocol agreements with different partners would strengthen the programme. "We agreed to network in order to ensure inter-country learning, exchange of best practices and new innovations in HIV/AIDS," the conference summary stated. PAYA also resolved to get gender and youth issues into HIV/AIDS programmes at national, regional and continental levels. The organisation's stated mandate is to highlight the importance of youth in the fight against HIV in Africa, through the identification of issues that make young people more vulnerable to infection. It also attempts to ensure that these issues are integrated into the policies and programmes of African countries. PAYA was launched in June 2003, to provide African youth with a forum to exchange experiences and ideas in their common struggle against HIV/AIDS.