UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 3their resources, because they don’t have ownership of the new model that’s been foistedon them from above, then there’s considerable resistance”. And of course the result wasno money for the country.57The UNAIDS PCB decided that ‘core financial support to national AIDS programmes shouldnot be provided by UNAIDS and that alternative sources of financial support should beidentified’ 7 . But the PCB did recommend provision in the next biennium budget (1998-1999) for programme development funds intended for country-level catalytic and innovativeactivities.Getting the numbers right“Being at the hubof the knowledgeis the best placeto be if you wantto coordinatethe response. Ifyou do that well,everyone wants toplay”. And as foradvocacy? “If youdon’t have the datayou don’t have thediscussion point”.Essential to UNAIDS’ advocacy work, globally and in countries, was the collection anddissemination of sound epidemiological data that would be used to illustrate and predict(mainly through mathematical modelling) the development and impact of the epidemic.Tracking the epidemic was a key objective of the UNAIDS Secretariat. Nils Kastberg, theSwedish diplomat and Chair of the GPA Taskforce that had patiently and determinedlydeveloped and overseen the birth of UNAIDS, said that one of the important aspects ofhaving one UN voice at global level was to have one set of numbers, one global referencepoint.Moodie explained that having credible data – knowing what the epidemic is doing – iscentral to the work of UNAIDS. “Being at the hub of the knowledge is the best place to beif you want to coordinate the response. If you do that well, everyone wants to play”. And asfor advocacy? “If you don’t have the data you don’t have the discussion point”.In 1996, responsibility for managing prevalence statistics was moved from WHO toUNAIDS, and staff started to collaborate with the other major groups working on HIV/AIDSdata around the world. Early that year, meetings were held with Jonathan Mann and DanielTarantola who had both moved to Harvard, where they had been developing their ownsets of estimates. Moodie and Stefano Bertozzi, Deputy Director of the Policy, Strategy andResearch department (acting Head until Coll-Seck joined mid-1996) also began workingwith the US Census Bureau, which had been studying the impact of the epidemic on populationsin every country in the world since the early 1980s and collecting all available dataon HIV prevalence.The US Census Bureau had developed the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Data Base on seroprevalence,available to everyone concerned with tracking the epidemic. Karen Stanecki wasChief of the Health Studies branch. “We were working closely within the US Government7UNAIDS (1997). Executive Director’s Report to the Fourth Meeting of the UNAIDS PCB, March. Geneva,UNAIDS.