UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 5Chapter 5:The end of the beginning:a clear global mandate, 2000-2001105By the end of 1999, about 26 million adults and children – two thirds of whom were inAfrica – were living with HIV. More than 9,000 new infections occurred every day, or oversix every minute. More than 20% of these were among young people aged 15–24. Already,there were in excess of 5.9 million orphans in Africa because of AIDS 1 . Global expenditureon AIDS in 2000 was US$ 1359 million. In 2001, it was US$ 1623 million 2 .The new millennium brought a major change in attitudes to AIDS and, over the next twoyears, the epidemic and its impact became a key item on the agenda of global leaders andorganizations. On 10 January 2000, the United Nations Security Council discussed AIDS inAfrica as a major human security concern as well as an obstacle to development – it wasalso the first time the Security Council had considered a health issue as a relevant subjectfor debate. The Vice-President of the United States of America, Al Gore, chaired the debatewhile the speakers included the UNAIDS Executive Director, the UN Secretary-General andthe President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn.Former United StatesAmbassador to the UN,Richard HolbrookeUNAIDS/J. RaeThe session had been engineered by RichardHolbrooke, United States Ambassador tothe UN since August 1999, in close consultationwith UNAIDS Executive Director PeterPiot, and in part as a result of visiting Africathe previous November in his capacity asa Security Council member. Holbrookereturned from this trip convinced that AIDSwas a major global problem and shouldbe deliberated at the Security Council.Even before that visit, Piot had discussedthe idea of a Security Council session withHolbrooke (it had been part of the strategicroad map planned at the Talloires, France,retreat in 1998), but he had not anticipatedthe speed with which Holbrooke could work. Although Holbrooke met with some resistance,he was determined that the matter should be on the Security Council’s agenda because, ashe explained to his aide, R P Eddy, ‘RP, one of the only UN entities that ever gets anything1UNAIDS/WHO, November 20072UNAIDS Resource Tracking Consortium, July 2004.