Article: Alliance Building a Growing Factor in AIDS Fight

25 June 2001

Article: Alliance Building a Growing Factor in AIDS Fight

Labor, business, civil society expanding partnerships

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

New York -- The U.N. General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS convened June 25 with many questions to be answered. Will Governments and corporations respond to the call for contributions to a global fund for prevention and treatment of the disease? Will nations resolve their differences about alternate approaches to attack the disease with prevention or treatment? Will this session result in a commitment of high-level leadership and resources that are said to be necessary to contain the spread of the disease?

But even with these questions looming, Secretary General Kofi Annan underscored the progress that has been made in the global battle against the disease in the last year. In speaking to the General Assembly June 25, he said this year has marked a "turning point" in the response to the pandemic.

"AIDS can no longer do its deadly work in the dark. The world has started to wake up," Annan said "We have seen it happening in the media and public opinion -- led by doctors and social workers, by activists and economists, above all by people living with the disease."

Annan himself deserves no small measure of credit for that progress, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said in his speech to the General Assembly. Annan has taken the lead in the international appeal for contributions to the global fund for HIV/AIDS.

That fund is steadily winning more commitments since Annan's first speech outlining the plan in April. The United States announced an initial $200 million contribution in May, the first nation to commit. Several nations, corporations and foundations have made similar pledges as the weeks have unfolded. Canada's Minister for International Cooperation made the latest announcement June 25 with a pledge of $73 million.

Piot noted other areas of progress over the last year, including dramatic reductions in the price of HIV drugs, and activism and involvement on the part of civil society organizations.

The last year has also been marked by an increasingly broad understanding that governments alone will not be able to contain the disease; the effort needs support from all segments of society -- labor, business, civil society and communities of faith. All those groups are represented at this three-day meeting, and they are announcing a variety of anti-AIDS initiatives on the sidelines of the UNGA sessions.

The corporate community is a significant presence at this meeting because "no corporate group of stakeholders is untouched" by this epidemic, according to U.N. Development Program Administrator Mark Malloch Brown. He presided over a panel discussion among business leaders who are pursuing a variety of strategies for protecting their employees and customers from the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Botswana President Festus Mogae explained how a close working relationship developed between his government and the business community when the country began to recognize several years ago that the disease was becoming a far greater threat than previously anticipated. As an example of the commitment of the corporate community, Mogae described a program in which DeBeers mining company provides antiretroviral drugs for HIV-positive employees and their families.

William Roedy, the chairman of the Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS, offered other examples of corporations providing medical care and retrovirals to employees, even though he said, "business has not done enough" to help combat the epidemic.

Roedy, who is also the president of the music video network MTV International, described the information campaigns his network has disseminated. He also announced that the Global Business Council is ready to launch a new publication which provides guidelines on how companies can operate disease education and prevention programs in their workplaces and their communities.

The progress of partnership in tackling the disease also was apparent in a June 25 announcement from the International Labor Organization. The ILO presented a "Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work" which has been crafted and adopted by its membership with involvement from major international labor unions and business organizations.

ILO Director General Juan Somavia said, "The new code is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive blueprint for workplace policy on HIV/AIDS every developed and addresses this present situation as well as its future consequences for the world of work."

The code calls for joint action by workers, employers and governments to promote prevention of HIV transmission. It denounces the stigmatization of workers because of HIV status and declares that HIV/AIDS-infected workers should not be victimized by discrimination in their work-status or in the provision of medical benefits.

Labor and business representatives party to the negotiations also participated in Somavia's news conference and emphasized the speed and ease with which they were able to come to an agreement. South Africa's Lettie La Grange, a health advisor to the national Chamber of Mines, said the code represents "a serious commitment from employers to do something constructive on HIV/AIDS."

Juliette Lenoir, representing the major U.S.-based labor organization AFL-CIO, emphasized the accord that developed between negotiators by calling La Grange "my sister." Lenoir expressed hope that agreement on this code could serve as a "transformative opportunity" for labor, business and governments to work on other issues in the future.