Honorable Minister of Health of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Terrence Delyasingh, Honorable Minister of Education of Guyana, and RCM Chair Nicolette Henry, partners, NAPS directors, civil society, friends.

It is a great pleasure for the Global Fund to be a sponsor of this important meeting through the PANCAP regional program. Those in this room have a great responsibility and opportunity to lead the HIV response in this region and we are very happy to be a part of this meeting.

As I read through the Concept Note and agenda for the next three days I was excited to see that there would be a real opportunity to discuss challenges, share best practices and look at some important innovative approaches.

The Caribbean has some important successes, elimination of mother to child transmission and congenital syphilis in 7 countries, access to treatment has doubled, adherence to test and treat in eight countries. All work that countries have led- Important achievements to celebrate.

Despite these successes, this meeting is also a place to discuss and define a path for the challenges ahead and to ask some important questions at individual country and regional level –

1) How can we move to achieve 90-90 -90 targets? Do we know what our treatment cascades look like? Do we have a key pops treatment cascade? Are we using this to make important decisions on where to best invest donor or domestic resources?

2) Data? Do we have it? Do we have the right data? Are we using it to shape our decision and drive for domestic financing and investing it effectively?

3) Are we looking at our strategy and ensuring that it is sustainable? Are we planning effectively as donors reduce resources in the region?

4) What are the real barriers to reaching our targets? What role does stigma and discrimination play? What are we doing to reduce human rights violations, and involving communities and civil society, key communities in the response?

5) What role can innovative approaches play in the response? Self-testing, Prep, and others?

6) What other actors can we integrate into the response? Does and can the private sector play a role?

And finally, how can we as partners and donors support you in achieving these results?

I am looking forward to this opportunity over next three days where rich discussion, information sharing and planning and hopefully collectively ensure we leave having responded some of these questions.