UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years40All of us involvedin AIDS forseveral years knewit was all aboutprevention, aboutgetting through toyoung people …political leadership.Deputy President ofSouth Africa,ThaboMbeki, addressing theSeventh InternationalConference of Peopleliving with HIV/AIDS,Cape Town, March 1995.Gideon Mendel/GNP+20 minutes I realized that everything I had just seen was going to be swept away if this wastrue … and if it were this powerful in the rest of southern eastern Africa … much of what theBank was supporting was all in peril”. That very morning, he and his colleagues put together aprogramme of support for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and he managed that for acouple of years. “But as late as the mid-90s”, he said, “the Bank was nowhere near to bringingthe full brunt of its resources and influence to bear on the epidemic”.Chan-Kam recalled how determined the preparatory team members were to work with theCosponsors. “All of us involved in AIDS for several years knew it was all about prevention,about getting through to young people … political leadership. There was a real imperativeto get all these different agencies to subscribe in a formal way to the UN effort, to do itjointly”. He smiled wryly: “Famous last words”.As the small team worked long hours in Geneva to ensure that UNAIDS would be fully functioningby January 1996, whatever the pressures it might confront, Piot and his colleagues setabout building the broad coalition of partners they believed was essential for any effectiveresponse. In March 1995, Piot attended his first major meeting as Head of the new Programme,the Seventh International Conference of People living with HIV/AIDS, held that year in CapeTown. It was a great opportunity to meet nongovernmental organizations and discuss theirinvolvement.Thabo Mbeki, then Deputy President of South Africa, spoke at the Cape Town meetingvery powerfully, Piot recalls, thinking he would be a strong ally. South African activist ZackieAchmat also remembers Mbeki’s “remarkable” speech. “It was Thabo Mbeki, not NelsonMandela”. The future would tell a different and more complex story.