Speaking to G8 foreign ministers at their meeting in Gatineau, Quebec last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:

“If the G8 is to remain credible, accountability is absolutely necessary.  Member nations must keep their commitments on economic pledges, on development and on security actions.  I look forward to a productive dialogue in Muskoka on strengthening accountability for G8 initiatives.”
 
I could not agree more. The IAS has repeatedly urged Prime Minister Harper to make the 2005 G8 commitment to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care and support by 2010 a centrepiece of the G8 Summit in Muskoka in June. Unfortunately, despite his own call for accountability, Harper has been silent on the G8’s commitment to universal access in the lead up to Muskoka.

Prime Minister Harper, centre, delivers his statement at the meeting. Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon is at left and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is at right. Source: Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

We’ll continue pushing in hopes that Prime Minister Harper and his counterparts will put forth and agree to a plan to reignite the drive for universal access when they meet this summer. The next key milestone in that process is the meeting of the G8 development ministers later this month in Halifax, Nova Scotia where they will have the opportunity to again place universal access prominently on the G8 agenda.

World leaders who committed to universal access to HIV prevention, care, treatment and support by 2010 must be held accountable. This week the IAS is launching a major campaign to do just that. We are mobilizing our14,000+ members along with tens of thousands allies around the globe to speak directly to world leaders about what is at risk as they continue to falter in their commitment to provide the resources and leadership needed to achieve universal access.

Our Universal Access Now campaign calls for a global recommitment to universal access as the Global Fund prepares for its replenishment meetings later this month and again in October and the Group of Eight and Group of 20 prepare to meet in Canada in June.  More...

Most political leaders seem to be abandoning AIDS and giving up on the drive for universal access. But last week, on 9 March, U.K. Minister of State for International Development Gareth Thomas stood up and said the U.K. wants to see action on the pledge to achieve universal access – a pledge the U.K. pressed for at Gleneagles when it had the G8 Presidency in 2005. And he called on other G8 and G20 members to recommit to moving forward.

Last week he chaired a high-level meeting in the impressive “Moses room” in the House of Lords in London to re-energize the political momentum for universal access – and he asked me to facilite the discussion among donors and the representatives of eight heavily affected African countries.

Minister Gareth Thomas with Annie Lennox and Vuyiseka Dubula of Treatment Action Campaign.

Among those attending were cabinet ministers, heads of national AIDS commissions, and civil society representatives, including people living with HIV. And the global players were there too: U.S. Ambassador Eric Goosby who leads PEPFAR, the heads of the Global Fund and UNAIDS, Michel Kazatchkine and Michel Sidibé, and our own President, Julio Montaner. It was a small crowd, but a stellar one – and one made even more striking when Annie Lennox turned up to add her passion and zeal to the conversation. 

In 2005, Lennox took part in BandAid, the massive fundraiser to “Make Poverty History”, where she sang and spoke movingly about the impact of AIDS on children – a campaign that she has dear to her heart. That same year, many of the rest of us had been around a table similar to the one we were at this past week. That meeting, called “Making The Money Work” and also hosted by DfID and occurring on 9 March, was convened to develop strategies for greater global cooperation as the level of resources for global AIDS initiatives was expanding dramatically.   More...