UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years82In Botswana, the UN Country Team was very active on AIDS issues. The UN system, underthe leadership of Resident Coordinator Deborah Landey (now Deputy Executive Director,Management and External Relations, UNAIDS), had led the development of a substantialprogramme of support to the government and other key stakeholders.Malloch Brown stressed the impact ofUNDP’s Botswana Human DevelopmentReport, published in 2000. The report,which was directed by Macharia Kamau,who had succeeded Landey as ResidentCoordinator, included a foreword byBotswana’s President Festus Mogae.Malloch Brown stated that Mogaewould attribute “his own conversion”to the report, “which pointed outthat Botswana is like the Singapore ofSouthern Africa”, [in that it] has [higher]per capita income and developmentrates than any of its neighbours becauseof its diamonds. Nevertheless, Botswanahas the same, if not higher, infectionrates as poorer neighbouring countries, which caused the country’s development gains tobe wiped out. After absorbing the significance of the Human Development Report, Mogaeannounced that the government would begin providing free antiretroviral treatment to thosewho needed it. Thus, the Human Development Report changed a country. Malloch Browncommented: “I realized that this sort of powerful advocacy really mattered”.Deborah Landey, UnitedNations ResidentCoordinator visitingbenefi ciaries of UNmulti-donor programme,Mindanao, PhilippinesUNAIDSUNAIDS Cosponsor United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was also evolving in its thinkingand practice on AIDS. At the first International Conference on Population and Development(ICPD), in 1994, the international community noted that AIDS required an urgent response,but no targets were set. But the ‘International Conference on Population and Developmentplus five’ review document published in 1999 had clear targets for HIV prevention, stating,for example, that ‘governments, with assistance from UNAIDS and donors should, by 2005,ensure that at least 90%, and by 2010 at least 95%, of young men and women aged 15 to 24have access to the information, education and services necessary to develop the life skillsrequired to reduce their vulnerability to HIV infection’.According to Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, “joining UNAIDS has beeninstrumental in ensuring that we make the link between sexual and reproductive health andHIV. After the five-year review of the ICPD Programme of Action, HIV took a more prominentposition in our work”.