Authors: Lee-Nah Hsu

A joint publication of UNAIDS and UNDP

Foreword

The Oslo Governance Centre was established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to serve as a resource centre on the role of democratic governance in the development process. Development is not just a matter of increasing a country's gross national product. Human development is both the measure and the objective of development. This is why one of the Centre's roles is to provide opportunities for UNDP staff to research and reflect on all issues likely to contribute in one way or another to sustainable human development. The democratic governance fellowship programme is designed to enable staff members to spend up to two months in Oslo for purposes of reflecting on an important activity carried out in the field and writing a paper on it to draw out the lessons learned and recommend new ways of dealing with the activity.
While much of the work done under the fellowship programme is likely to fall into the different service lines of the democratic governance practice, staff members are encouraged to undertake research on issues that cut across the five UNDP practice areas of governance, poverty, environment and energy, HIV/AIDS, and crisis prevention and recovery. The first research fellowship on the cross-practice between governance and HIV was granted to Lee-Nah Hsu, Manager of the UNDP South East Asia HIV and Development Programme.
Studying the impact of HIV/AIDS on democratic governance, and how the latter can be a factor in the prevention, treatment, care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS and in dealing with the pandemic, is essential to achieving sustainable development, particularly in countries with high HIV prevalence rates. Dr. Hsu makes an important contribution in this regard. Her paper shows that introducing democratic governance practices into development does facilitate the building of a community's HIV resilience. From such a perspective, governance issues are not a luxury for developed countries, but a means of survival and prosperity for developing countries.
The Oslo Governance Centre hopes that the present paper, which has been reviewed by both governance and AIDS experts, will trigger new thinking on which to build effective and sustainable policies and programmes to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS. Far more work is necessary at both the conceptual and operational levels to resolve the many theoretical and practical issues that have been raised.

Download publication in pdf format: English, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian

• Back • Next •

974-91870-8-3

February 2004