UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years118partners. The most important step, said Hansen,was that the Bank should wake up to the fact thatAIDS was a development threat and a developmentissue. “We began to force it on the agendawith conversations with countries that were notraising it with us … and [to realize] that we hada unique role to play in making AIDS legitimateto discuss as a development issue, not justas a public health concern or a humanitarianproblem”.In March 1999, Zewdie’s group produced its own manifesto for action, and in May she wonher campaign to create a new department for AIDS in the African region. The President of theBank, James Wolfensohn, ‘woke up to the scale of the pandemic’ 12 , and in September 2000 theBank’s board approved a Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Programme for Africa (MAP). The initial sumauthorized was US$ 500 million, and another half billion was promised as soon as necessary.Hansen explained: “The emergence of MAP changed the scale and tone of how we dealtwith AIDS … in Africa, at least, it was clearly the Bank’s top priority”. The Bank expected thatit would take about three years for the US$ 500 million to be committed and to get countriesinterested. It took less than 18 months. Hansen explained: “Both our own reviews and independentevaluations have concluded that the sheer weight, the prominence, the novelty ofthe MAP, helped break down the barriers and the denial that had existed. And countries thatpreviously wouldn’t even discuss it in public were suddenly lining up to get support from this.The World Bank talking about it helped make AIDS a mainstream development topic”.Launch of the WorldBank HIV/AIDSStrategic Plan. (leftto right) UNAIDSExecutive Director PeterPiot; World Bank VicePresident, Africa Region,Callisto Madavo; WorldBank Director, GlobalHIV/AIDS ProgrammeDebrework Zewdie;and . . .Lusaka, Zambia,September 1999.UNAIDSLaunch of International Partnership against AIDSin AfricaIn early December 2000, the Second Africa Development Forum took place in Addis Ababa.Organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa together with a number of UN agencies,it brought together more than 1500 African leaders, policy makers, activist organizations andacademics. The focus was on ‘Leadership at all levels to overcome HIV/AIDS’. Speaking at theForum, Piot coined the phrase ‘social immune system’. Reflecting on a recent visit to Uganda,he said: “… I met with women who are preparing their children to be orphans, organizingeverything from memory books to sustainable arrangements for micro-credit. These womenare truly leaders … There is no escaping the reality that AIDS can only be curbed through asustained social mobilization that systematically reduces vulnerability … Reducing vulnerabilityto AIDS and its impact is about creating a social vaccine or, better still, a social immune systemthat continually learns, builds and rebuilds itself in protecting against the impact of AIDS”.12Ibid.