The Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) will this week be officially designated an "International Best Practice" by the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) during a Press Launch of the publication: Common Goals, Shared Responses: A Case Study on the Pan-Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). The publication, produced jointly by the UNAIDS and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariats, will be launched at the Half Moon Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 13 December 2004 at 5.00 p.m.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana) A three-day conference under the theme, Champions for Change, involving at least one Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Prime Minister, Ministers of Government, health officials and civil society representatives from the Region as well as the United Kingdom opens in St. Kitts on Monday, November 22.

Under the theme - Leadership in Partnership - the CARICOM-led Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) held its Fourth Annual General Meeting from 21-23 October 2004 in Barbados.

The Meeting was managed by a rotating Chairmanship of distinguished Ministers of Health including: Hon. Jerome Walcott, Barbados; Hon. John Maginley, Antigua and Barbuda; Hon. John Junor, Jamaica; Hon. Damien Greaves, Saint Lucia; and Dr. the Hon. Douglas Slater, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

THEME:  LEADERSHIP THROUGH PARTNERSHIP

It is my pleasure to bring greetings to the Chairman and delegates at the Opening Ceremony of the Fourth Annual General Meeting of the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). I regret that I cannot be physically present, but this is largely due to the fact that St. Kitts and Nevis is in the terminal stages of its general elections scheduled for 25th October (just four days away).

Under the theme Leadership through Partnership, the CARICOM-led Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) will hold its Fourth Annual General Meeting on 21-22 October 2004, in Barbados