UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years56ASI clinic / doctor withpatient, Guatemala city.UNAIDS/C. SattlbergerAs Chan-Kam stressed when asked about the requirements for a successful CPA, it wasimpossible to provide a blueprint because the country environments differed so much.“You might have a supportive Theme Chair but you might have a Resident Coordinatorwho’s at odds with the Theme Chair. You might have a very strong civil society … perpetuallyin combat with authority and you are kind of caught between the two … So what wefound in those early years was that you would go to a country and you would hear from fiveof your interlocutors, ‘Your country programme is fantastic’ and you go to another fi ve andthey say ‘Get rid of that person’ (a) because they not did not get from that person whatthey wanted, and (b) very often they did not really understand what the role of the CountryProgramme Adviser was”.Need for fundingUnlike GPA, UNAIDS was not a funding body, but it soon became clear that manycountries’ AIDS work would suffer if the flow of funds was suddenly cut, as many countrieshad benefited from significant GPA funding. So for the first two years, UNAIDS committeditself to funding some national AIDS programmes – that is, the programmes managed bythe Ministry of Health. As Chan-Kam explained, these were “bridging funds to make thepill a little less bitter”. Although the funding was an interim measure, from 1996 to 1997, itinevitably created expectations. After two years, there was little new money forthcomingfrom the Cosponsors. Moodie explained: “If agencies don’t want to play ball by increasing