From the Department for International Development

22 September 2003

UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY HIGH LEVEL MEETING ON HIV/AIDS: NEW YORK 22 SEPT 2003 

SPEECH BY HILARY BENN

At the UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS two years ago the UK’s representative, Clare Short, said this:

“We have no reason to congratulate ourselves on the holding of this meeting. We have been aware of this infection for 20 years and that it was spreading out of control for at least 10 years…. What we need now is urgent and much more effective action.” 

Sadly, her words remain true today.

We know, the World Bank has warned us, that some African countries face economic collapse because of AIDS, with family incomes decimated. 

We know that the crisis is being made worse by the shortage of food in Southern Africa – what Kofi Annan has called “the deadly triad”.

We know that countries struggle to cope with millions of orphan children and that these children are having to be cared for, and the fields planted, by their grandparents because a whole generation – their children’s generation - has been wiped out. 

We know that countries can’t provide a school place for their children because their teachers are dying.

We know that AIDS kills development as well as people. 

And we know it’s not just Africa’s problem. AIDS is increasingly affecting the whole world, and we need to work just as hard to prevent epidemics elsewhere reaching the scale of those in Africa, as we need to do to reduce the terrible impact we witness on a continent that has suffered so much. 

Mr Chairman, it is because we know all of this that we don’t need any more documents or declarations. 

What we need – and what the millions of our fellow human beings dying of AIDS need – is action. So what together should we do ?

First, we must find the money needed for this fight. The UK is the 2nd largest bilateral donor of HIV/AIDS assistance in the world and we have already pledged $280m to the Global Fund over 7 years. We are also backing research into vaccines and microbicides. 

Second, we must ensure that the way we offer this money actually supports what countries are already doing rather than makes this more difficult by demanding extra reporting or more meetings of hard-pressed staff. We must work through nationally-owned AIDS programmes.

Third, we need to recognise that treatment is the most immediate and pressing issue. Some of us have been slow, DFID included, to see this, and we have found ourselves lagging behind developing country governments that are desperate to use treatment to help their people. The truth is that we need to use all the means we have to fight this disease, and we strongly welcome the World Health Organisation’s “3 by 5” target to get 3 million people on treatment by 2005.

Fourth, we must start to grasp the awful inequity of four Africans dying of AIDS every minute while in richer countries anti-retrovirals make it possible for people with AIDS to return to work. 

Things are changing, though. Drug prices are falling and demand is growing. The agreement reached at the start of this month on TRIPS and Access to Medicines is a significant step forward for countries without their own manufacturing capacity. Having won this right, let’s use it. 

Fifth, we must do more to support the staff, hospitals and clinics needed to deliver these drugs safely and fairly. As treatment is increasingly used in poor countries, we must make sure it reaches the very poorest, and not just the well-off and not just men.

Finally, we must recognise that while treatment is vital, so is prevention. So is care for the sick. So is reaffirming our strong commitment to reproductive health rights, and working with all those at risk including drug users, sex workers, gay men and others at the margins of some societies. 

Mr Chairman, if we are honest, we should have done more sooner and we could all do more now. So let us leave this special session determined to do more in future by turning our words into action. Millions of people are depending upon us, and we owe it to them to make sure that we succeed.