Ahead of the 17th International AIDS Conference in AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) in December, the ICASA YouthFront will  host a youth pre-conference under the theme: “Now More Than Ever – Getting to Zero: for youth, by youth, with youth“.  Discussions will cover issues on Leadership, Accountability and Participation.

The ICASA YouthFront is a coalition of youth-serving organisations working on HIV/AIDS and Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights of Young People in Africa. The core mandate of the YouthFront is to ensure effective and active participation of young people in ICASA.

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ICASA is a key event on HIV/AIDS for the African continent. The conference theme “Now More Than Ever: Targeting Zero” is derived from the UNAIDS’ vision of striving for “Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths”, but it also highlights the need to “now more than ever” maintain the commitment to ensure access to treatment for everyone in Africa irrespective of their ability to pay for such treatment. 

This year’s ICASA is an opportunity for the international community, and all Africans, to join efforts in committing to achieving an AIDS-free Africa.

The objectives of ICASA 2013 are to:

• Serve as an advocacy platform to mobilise African leaders, partners and the community to  increase ownership, commitment and support to the AIDS response.
• Provide a forum for exchange of knowledge, skills and best practices in Africa and from around  the globe.
• Mobilise support to scale up evidence-based responses to HIV and AIDS, sexually transmitted   infections, tuberculosis and Malaria in order to achieve the millennium development goals.
• Act as platform to hold accountable all stakeholders to scale up and sustain the AIDS response.
• Create opportunities to define priorities and set policy and programme agendas to enhance  mobilisation and effective utilisation of resources.