Civil society plays an important role in the fight against AIDS. This role is best recognizable at the country level where civil society contributes to the development and implementation of programs and performs a crucial role in advocacy. In doing so civil society displays a broad spectrum of organizations and initiatives (NGOs, FBOs, CBOs and organizations of people living with HIV/AIDS). They are providing care and support to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, develop and implement treatment programs, are involved in monitoring and evaluation, education and prevention programs and involved in a large variety of advocacy efforts.

There is a huge potential found within Civil society for scale-up of services and Civil Society is, compared to governments, more successful in reaching out to the most vulnerable and marginalized groups that are affected most by HIV/AIDS.

There is growing acknowledgement within the international community for the role of civil society. In some cases civil society representation is already organized on a structural basis (on the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, the Global Fund Board and the UNITAID Board ) or established in the context of specific events or processes (UNGASS, Universal Access and the Global Task Team).

Effective participation of civil society requires easy access to information, communication capacity, organizational infrastructure and financial means. The HIV/AIDS networks (EEA, GNP+, ICW, ICASO, ITPC, IHAA and WAC) have made a major effort in this regard and provide some of these requirements. The global civil society architecture has therefore matured, became more organized, better funded and more effective. However, overall the civil society response to date is still fragmented, often reactive, lacks coordination and is not informed by a shared agenda that is owned by civil society.

Building on what is in place, the infrastructure, capacity and strength of the existing HIV/AIDS networks, it is timely to bring stakeholders from these networks together to evaluate the current civil society structures and mechanisms and to explore how we can further develop and improve the "global HIV/AIDS civil society architecture" in order to improve our response; on a country level as well as on an international level.

The Free Space Process, facilitated by International Civil Society Support, provides this space. A first meeting has taken place on October 17-19 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Report of that meeting can be downloaded from this webpage.