The Global AIDS Policy Watch (GAPW) is a Project of Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA). In its almost thirty years of experience, ABIA has been at the forefront of knowledge production, dissemination and advocacy around prevention, access, and treatment. The GAPW is a watchdog to monitor and develop a critical analysis of AIDS-related policies globally; to create a Knowledge and Action Network that brings together key stakeholders from NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and policy makers; and to disseminate results of strategic research aimed at supporting AIDS-related civil society organizations in order to provide more effective advocacy for issues related to sustainability, capacity building, and fundraising. Furthermore, the GAPW will concentrate its efforts in the monitoring of global AIDS policies through South-South cooperation, prioritizing mobilization of partnerships with organizations in the so-called BRICS, but also with a range of key partners in the global North.
Founded in 1987, ABIA is Brazil’s leading HIV and AIDS research and advocacy organization. ABIA has been mobilizing society to confront the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Brazil, as well as the struggle for access to treatment and care and protection of human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS. In this sense, ABIA has been active over the years in the monitoring of public policies, in the formulation of education projects and HIV and AIDS and access to information.
In the late 1980s, ABIA was actively involved in the creation of the ICASO and LACCASO networks (ABIA was one of the founders of ICASO, and the first secretariat of LACCASO). Since the 1990s, ABIA has participated in most of the scientific committees for the International AIDS Conferences. By the late 1990s, ABIA was also involved in monitoring the international HIV vaccine trials being carried out in Brazil. ABIA also developed a range of projects in relation to Brazilian foreign cooperation programs in HIV/AIDS, such as the assessment of the donation of Brazilian generic ARVs to Paraguay and Bolivia in the early 2000s.