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The Alliance participated in a recent Global Partners Forum on Orphans and Vulnerable Children affected by HIV/AIDS, which aimed to identify the challenges that prevent the needs and rights of children affected by HIV/AIDS being met, and to establish a set of commitments to remove these blockages and scale up priority interventions within national policies and plans. For the first time, this year’s forum, which took place in London in February, was preceded by a technical consultation, where participants discussed the action needed to scale up effective services for children. The Alliance successfully lobbied to have community mobilisation and capacity strengthening as one of the priority issues at the forum. Recommendations from the technical consultation were taken to the forum, where Dr Reji Chandra, director of Palmyrah Workers Development Society, one of the Alliance lead partners in India, presented on community mobilisation. “Community mobilisation is an empowering process,” said Dr Chandra. “It’s about organising people and strengthening their capacity to manage issues that affect their lives. This is a sustainable process for improving community capacity and generating community responses, especially for an issue such as children affected by HIV and AIDS. The process also has the potential to strengthen and lead the community beyond HIV and AIDS.” Dr Chandra explored why the role of communities in assisting and protecting children affected by HIV and AIDS is both essential and under-supported, and tried to reach agreement on ways to strengthen community mobilisation efforts. On the final morning, following lively debate, participants voted for ‘direct long-term financial support to the community level to scale up implementation of evidence-based approaches’ as the major recommendation for the ‘community mobilisation and capacity strengthening’ theme. This year’s Global Partners Forum was the third held since it was established in 2003 to give momentum to fulfilling global commitments for children affected by HIV and AIDS, as stated in the United Nations General Assembly 2001 Declaration of Commitments on HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals.