The closing plenary heard from Canon Gideon Byagumisha from Uganda, who was the first priest in Africa to publicly declare his HIV positive status. He challenged leaders to choose committment instead of tokenism.
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Your Excellencies, I am a person of faith, a religious leader, and yes…a person living with HIV.
I must confess to you that quite often I grow weary and frightened when I imagine how future generations will look back to this 25th anniversary of the suffering and death caused by AIDS. Of course, our grandchildren will see that there were aspects of the response where we made real progress in those 25 years – we learned what it takes to prevent transmission of the virus, we learned what works to help people who are positive to live longer and productive lives, we learned how to help children who are orphaned, and we learned what responses are most effective in providing care and support to individuals and communities that are affected. But the greatest and most obvious gaps that survivors, will wonder about – and be angry about -- are the missed opportunities, the lack of political will and the lack of total commitment by those of us in leadership positions to use all that we knew and all that we had to fight the pandemic. They will surely ask “What went wrong?” “What prevented us from transforming the knowledge and the resources we had, into focused will and targeted action?” “Who were the world leaders at that time?”
But we still have the opportunity to escape the harsh pen of history. To do this, we need your political will. We need your total commitment. You are our political leaders. It is your job to provide the needed leadership -- in your nation’s capitals and your local communities.
At this 2006 High Level Meeting, we have come to the crossroads and we have an important choice to make:
Do we want to continue making token contributions, speaking weak words, and avoiding specific targets?
or
Do we want to make the life-long and life-saving commitments and sacrifices necessary to halt, reverse and eventually overcome the pandemic?
You came to this meeting with positions to defend or to negotiate, but you leave with a choice to make: continuing with tokenism or transforming the AIDS landscape with total commitment.
Tokenism means moving on without clear targets, pledging some little money, signing documents, and issuing press releases.
Total commitment means fully implementing the policies, programs and partnerships that we know will work. Total commitment is demonstrated by:
• The full participation of people living with HIV and AIDS
• Embracing and meeting firm targets by 2010
• Promoting and protecting the rights of women and their empowerment
• Implementing comprehensive, evidence-informed and rights-based prevention strategies
• Ending stigma and discrimination
• Naming and responding to the needs of all vulnerable groups
• And insuring that no task-focused results-oriented, evidence-led and well-costed national strategy goes unfunded or underfunded.
This is an important choice – and a heavy responsibility. But you, as our political leaders, are not alone on this journey of choice and responsibility. We positive people, people of faith, and all of civil society are here to work with you. We are responsible and effective partners if given the space and the support needed to make our contribution.
In my world of faith there are two virtues we hold dear – keeping promises and multiplying hope. Indeed, our hope for a world without AIDS will be real – but only if your political will is firm, your commitment is total and your promises are kept.
We all have much work to do – and you have promises to keep -- so that when we return in five years to assess how we have done, we will not be lamenting our failures but rather celebrating the achievement of what has been accomplished.
So, let us keep the promise and stop AIDS!
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Background information:
Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha is speaking as a member of civil society. Canon Gideon is from Uganda and was the first priest in Africa to publicly declare his HIV positive status. He has since dedicated his life to breaking the stigma, shame, denial, discrimination, inaction and mis-action related to HIV and AIDS. Canon Gideon is an Anglican priest and founder of ANERELA+ (the African Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV/AIDS), and he serves as advisor to the HIV and AIDS Hope Initiative for World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization.
www.worldvision.org
www.anerela.org
Contact: Sara Speicher, Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, 1-646 468 0673