I arrived here yesterday from South Africa, where I saw very positive signs of strong new leadership on AIDS. The National AIDS Council has a clear agenda, and it is good to see government and civil society really rallying together to achieve this.

As everybody knows this is my last PCB meeting. It’s therefore with mixed feelings that I am addressing you. Rather than give you my usual report on the work of UNAIDS since the last since the last PCB meeting, I’d like to share some reflections on the past and future of UNAIDS and the aids response. I’m afraid I will be a bit longer than usual.

On behalf of the Chair of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations, Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, it is my pleasure to present the statement of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations.

23rd meeting of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board

It troubles me greatly to say that caring societies are in recession. We are bombarded with news and reports of increasingly terrible acts perpetuated on women. In South Africa according the Medical Research Council of Cape Town University, one in four women report being abused by an intimate partner – and every six hours a woman is killed. In the UK according to the British Crime Survey, a reported 80,000 women suffer rape every year2. Research from a number of countries confirms what seems common sense: there is a strong relationship between intimate partner violence and HIV status.

UNAIDS Executive Director addresses closing of Stop TB Partners Forum

Pot-banging for gender equality and universal access: scaling up our engagement with men and boys

Let me say from the outset of my opening remarks that if our hope is to put AIDS into the history books—we must take bolder action. Most important is preventing new infections. As long as there are five people newly infected for every two people starting HIV treatment—we will not change the trajectory of the epidemic.

When we explore the causes of Africa’s under-economic development, it is common to mention slave trade, colonialism, difficulty in accessing sea trade or inefficient institutions. However, experts in health and economics increasingly agree that it is infectious diseases that play the largest role in Africa’s underdevelopment.

UNAIDS Executive Director's presentation on the challenges of pandemics for Africa’s development. Opening of the 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting in Na mibia. 10 june 2009.