Cairo – 3 May 2011 :The UNDP HIV/AIDS Regional Programme in The Arab States organized its fifth technical meeting on human rights approach to outreach among HIV most at risk populations (MARPs) in Cairo, from 27 to 29 April 2011.  Nearly forty human rights activists, lawyers and representatives of NGOs who work with PLWHIV and MARPs participated in the meeting.

HARPAS – 15 May 2011 – Ahmed Balah: Pains are accompanied by hopes and wishes, a critical reality accompanying dreams of another soulful future, with serious attempts to develop new ideas to small projects that help them leave the past with all its pains and start a new life that give them safety and dignity..

Kuwait – 5 May 2011- Ahmed Balah: A group of Kuwaiti media professionals launched a number of individual initiatives aiming to enhance the level of awareness with AIDS and support the rights of persons living with its virus (PLWHIV) in Kuwait. These initiatives came at the termination of the "Training Workshop for Kuwaiti Professionals for Positive Interaction with AIDS Issues" held in Kuwait from 2 to 4 May 2011. Participants in the workshop had established a page on the social networking (Facebook) to ensure communication among themselves and follow-up implementation of such initiatives.

Jeddah – 26 January 2011: Participants in the training workshop for media professionals in response to AIDS, held in Jeddah from 23 to 25 January 2011, pledged to work seriously towards overcoming stigmatization and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Cairo – Ahmed Balah – 17 December 2010: The participants in the regional seminar on “HIV and the protection of the Arab citizen” called the Arab parliament to accelerate studying and approving the Arab convention for HIV protection in its second round to be held next Monday, 20 December 2010.

A successful response to HIV/AIDS is one that needs the true involvement of the whole community acting together as one force complementing and supporting each other. A key influential actor in this Arab community is the religious leaders; their impact is one that cannot be neglected. They have legitimacy, a durable presence and even more than that; they help shape the social values and norms of people ...

The second event conducted in Algiers, Algeria 29-31 Oct. 2007 is part of a series of sub-regional workshops. Organized by UNDP/HARPAS in partnership with UNDP Algeria, ILO, and UNHCR, it gathered 60 parliamentarians from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It built up on a previous initiative organized in November 2005, "The Legal Framework for HIV/AIDS ...

HIV/AIDS impacts are likely to concentrate on young adults in their most productive years. Thus, AIDS is projected as having the potential to become the second major cause of death among adults of working age in the world - including the Arab world - posing a serious economic threat. The epidemic is eroding productivity just at the time when developing countries, including most of the Arab countries, need to become more competitive to cope with rapid globalization...

From the 8th to the 11th of September 2007, HARPAS has organized a regional training workshop co-facilitated by UNDP and the Reuters Foundations employing UNDP's transformative leadership and development enhancement methodologies that have generated highly effective responses to the epidemic in the region, in synergy with the Media professional expertise of the Reuters Foundation...

Women in the Arab world are often discriminated against and facing numerous violations of their human rights, as identified in the Arab Human Development Report 2002 women's empowerment is one of the three deficits the Arab World is confronted with and if progress in the region is to be achieved, addressing gender inequalities is definitely one area where UNDP is targeting its efforts...