UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 6and discussions on HIV-related matters. One morning, Wilson arrived at the office to see agroup of fathers of injecting drug users around the table sharing their concerns, and she feltthat the room was taking on a life of its own.157Some of the HIV-affected individuals who had been using the room eventually becameUNAIDS staff members, demonstrating UNAIDS’ recognition of their extraordinary experienceand how much they could contribute to UN work.The Global Fund opens for businessOn 28 January 2002, the Board of the new Global Fund toFight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had its first organizationalmeeting in Brussels.By that time, the major decisions about the type of organization, and its way of working,had been taken. But in the previous few months, the disputes between the range ofstakeholders involved were reminiscent of those that took place during the setting up ofUNAIDS.There were disagreements about where the new Global Fund would be based. SeveralEuropean Union member states wanted it to be housed in Brussels; others preferred Parisor Geneva. Geneva was eventually chosen because WHO, UNAIDS and other members ofthe UN family were there. Ironically, given this decision, the most serious disagreement hadbeen about whether the Global Fund should be part of the UN.Like former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot hadbeen convinced from the late 1990s that a special funding mechanism was needed forAIDS because the normal system [of overseas aid] could not generate the amounts ofmoney needed. Both he and Annan had fought hard to get the Global Fund established.The Global Fund was not housed within the UN because, according to Marta Mauras, whowas at the time Director of the Office of the UN Deputy Secretary-General, “… the donorswere only going to accept such an instrument if it was partly controlled by them”.Kathleen Cravero, now Assistant Administrator at UNDP, explained: “There was very muchthe view that the Global Fund was necessary because the UN hadn’t worked … If the UNcould ‘solve’ AIDS, it would already have done so. UNAIDS is fine as a policy and advocacygroup but it doesn’t really have the muscle or the money to get the job done, so let’s createthis huge fund. This really was an undercurrent, although not explicitly stated, which is whyit would not have been in UNAIDS from the outset”.