In 2011, UNAIDS adopted a groundbreaking approach to engage young people in the AIDS response—CrowdOutAIDS—an online collaborative policy project which leveraged social media and online collaboration tools to develop the first ever crowdsourced strategy document in the history of the United Nations.

CrowdOutAIDS Strategy Recommendations For Collaborating With A New Generation Of Leaders For The AIDS Response, the outcome document of the project, was compiled by an independent, youth-led Drafting Committee, in dialogue with the UNAIDS Secretariat, on behalf of the more than 5,000 young people who took part in CrowdOutAIDS.

The document provides a set of recommendations for strategic actions that the UNAIDS Secretariat should undertake to collaborate more effectively with a new generation of leaders in the AIDS response.

The Goal

The goal for UNAIDS work with youth leadership—as defined through CrowdOutAIDS—is to work towards achieving the targets set in the 2011 Political Declaration on AIDS by increasing youth leadership, ownership, and mobilization in the AIDS response at the country, regional, and global level by 2015.

The document also outlines a series of definitions and key guiding principles for the UNAIDS secretariat’s work with young people

An online collaboration platform for the AIDS response

The first step to achieving this, as outlined in the CrowdOutAIDS strategy, was to develop an online space that maximizes the potential for young people’s participation and leadership in the AIDS response to serve as the hub for all UNAIDS youth-related activities—which collectively go under the name of New Generation Leadership Initiative.

To do this, UNAIDS took the decision to repurpose crowdoutaids.org into version 2.0, with the aim to:

The platform will grow as the community grows, adding new features based on the needs of the community. In its first iteration, CrowdOutAIDS version 2.0 will focus on delivering on the following commitments from the strategy recommendations:

• In collaboration with youth activists and organization, set up a youth advisory board for UNAIDS.

• Expand the crowdmapping project to identify youth-led and youth-serving organizations and youth activists in the AIDS response and link them up with the global strategy.

• Mobilize youth volunteers to host CrowdOutAIDS open forums in November and December 2012 as the starting point for the collaborative campaign called for in the CrowdOutAIDS strategy.

• Develop a wiki on key resources to empower youth leaders in the AIDS response with practical knowledge and information to become more effective activists able to shape public opinion and hold their governments to account.

Need more info?

If you are interested in learning more, send an email to NGL@unaids.org.