UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years110 Planning for the United Nations General AssemblySpecial Session on AIDS – an historic firstIn January 2000, at the UN Security Council debate on AIDS, the Ukrainian ambassador tothe UN had called for a Special Session on AIDS. A UN General Assembly Special Session(UNGASS), in which the entire UN focuses on one issue, is called to address matters of thegreatest global significance. This would be the first time a Special Session addressed a healthissue, reflecting a growing consensus in the UN (and beyond) that AIDS was much more thanjust a health issue, rather a major threat to global human and economic development.UNGASS wasreally a highpoint for everyone,a small teamworking so hard.Preparation meetings started in May 2000. As Sy moved to New York to head the UNAIDSoffice there: he was immediately thrown into preparing for UNGASS the following June.He explained: “Normally, if you prepare for a Special Session, you have three to four years,regional consultations – a whole infrastructure. Here you had a year where everything neededto happen and [so we had to] communicate a sense of urgency to move the whole agenda”.In the spring of 2000, Kathleen Cravero joined UNAIDS as DeputyExecutive Director. Her first impression was of a brilliant, talentedbut rather anarchic group of people. Unlike most of the UNAIDSstaff, Cravero was a UN person through and through, havingworked at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the WorldHealth Organization (WHO) and the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP) for many years, often at country level. Part ofher role was working with Cosponsors. Cravero’s first major taskwas to organize UNGASS – this was all-consuming from September2000 until the actual event in June 2001. “UNGASS was really a highpoint for everyone, a small team working so hard”.Political drama at the DurbanInternational AIDS ConferenceAnother high point at the start of the new millennium came in July2000; the 13 th International AIDS Conference was held in Durban,South Africa. For the first time, this major AIDS gathering was being held in a low-incomecountry and, specifically, the country with the largest number of people infected with HIV.Significantly, given Mbeki’s views on the cause of AIDS, a week before the conference, on 6July, the highly respected journal Science published a statement later known as the DurbanDeclaration. It was signed by 5000 scientists around the world, affi rming that empiricalevidence for the link between HIV and AIDS was ‘clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous’.The theme of the conference was ‘Break the silence’, emphasizing how much stigma, denialIn the spring of 2000,Kathleen Cravero joinedUNAIDS as DeputyExecutive DirectorUNAIDS