UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 4The Secretary-General’s voicewould just havebeen one voicewithout the backupof UNAIDSand equally thereverse.There was a certain reluctance on the part of donors to attend the meeting, although therewere many ministers from Africa, some Chief Executive Officers from the pharmaceuticalindustry, heads of UN agencies (“several of them very grumbly”, recalled Jim Sherry,former Director of the Programme Development and Coordination Group of UNAIDS),and leaders from the nongovernmental organization community. Cleves understood theviewpoint of the donors: “IPAA had been under discussion for a long time at this point,and until this meeting with Annan, UNAIDS had proved incapable of articulating whatIPAA actually was. So the donors were losing patience”.Sherry explained that upon realizing that no Organisation for Economic Co-operationand Development (OECD) donors would be at the meeting, “in desperation” he calledSandy Thurman, Clinton’s AIDS Tsar, and she agreed to change her schedule in order toattend. She “… made her statement … in extraordinarily positive terms about the multilateraleffort and the UN and the Secretary-General’s leadership”, recalled Sherry. Piotbrought in Eddy Boutmans, the Belgian Minister of International Development and theonly minister from a donor country at the meeting.95Annan charged those present with preparing an unprecedented response commensuratewith the scale of AIDS in Africa.The partners at the meeting committed themselves to working together under a commonlynegotiated Framework for Action, focusing on actions in countries. There was some mobilizationof money from donors after this, but equally important was their realization thatthrough the Secretary-General’s involvement, the response to the epidemic was movingto a higher political level. Annan was showing leadership and, eventually, ownership; hiscommitment to this work was considerable and constant throughout his mandate.“So the meeting was a success”, recalled Cleves, “and a great relief after so much hardwork”.As Malloch Brown said: “There has been a most fortunate synergy in having an AfricanSecretary-General at a time when so much work was needed on AIDS – and [in having]his extraordinary leadership”. Both Annan’s and UNAIDS’ advocacy were important: “TheSecretary-General’s voice would just have been one voice without the back-up of UNAIDSand equally the reverse. They needed each other. I think it’s been a very timely partnership”.