The final political declaration of the United Nations, to be endorsed today by a unusally large assembly of global governmental officials and diplomats, improved on its commitment to women and girls and young people generally compared to earlier drafts. That's the good news.

How that language gets implemented is hard to imagine given that the UN fails to set specific targets for the 2001 Declaration of Commitment. The equally vulnerable populations who failed to get specific mentions in the document (men who have sex with men, sex workers, prisoners, and intravenous drug users) remain officially invisble to governments of the world. Thus, the lessons from 25 years of AIDS are largely being ignored by the global community. That, quite obviously, is the bad news.

Targets for financing have been greatly weakened compared to those set in 2001 that were aggressive, and met. The declaration does call on governements to set national fiscal targets this year that include interim targets for 2008 and stresses the urgency of action that is required, and to improve health systems and human resources for health care.

In one of the more bizarre twists, the US delegation insisted on language weakening the financial targets, after spending much of the week touting the Bush Administration's financial commitments, and calling on other governments to follow their lead in increasing resources.

Improvements to the final document over earlier drafts include, "comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategies … including the use of condoms, evidence and skills-based … HIV education … youth friendly health services.”

There was also a strong commitment to “ensure that women can exercise their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality” along with numerous other provisions regarding their empowerment, their “economic independence” and protection of their human rights, reiterating “the importance of the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality.”

As we have reported all week, this process was achieved despite serious opposition by the U.S. in league with the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) last night, and deafening silence from the African group, whose spokesperson was Gabon and has been working closely during the entire negotiation with Egypt and Syria.

Barring last minute fits of common sense, follwing the leadership of Latin American nations and India that have tried all week to improve the document on targets, financing and vulnerable populations, the speeches that will continue throughout the day will not change the final documnet. On that front, we'd like to be wrong.