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. 

As a Canadian, I am deeply troubled by recent indications from the host of the summits, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that he wants the G8 to move on from HIV and AIDS. Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Harper issued a vague and self-serving call to improve the health of women and children in the world’s most vulnerable regions without recognizing the tremendous impact that HIV and AIDS programmes are having on maternal and child health in those very regions. Canada is also now the only G8 nation firmly opposed to the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), a tiny tax on financial transactions that has been endorsed by the U.K. and could raise the huge sums needed to fulfill the pledge to universal access.

In an editorial shortly after Harper’s speech, I joined my colleagues Stephen Lewis and Mark Wainberg in an editorial calling on the Canadian government to ensure that HIV/AIDS remains a central topic for discussion and action at the G8 and G20 meetings. The world has an obligation and moral duty to fulfill the pledge to fund universal access to modern and effective HIV/AIDS therapies. Canada has the same obligation and moral duty as the host nation to put HIV and AIDS high on the G8 and G20 summit agendas. If not, universal access will become one of another long line of broken promises on global health.

The IAS campaign will need your ongoing and active partnership to be successful. As your first action, use our new online system to write directly to world leaders urging them to take action on universal access. You can also learn more about:

• the original commitment to universal access 
• the impact of treatment and prevention scale-up on the course of the epidemic and 
• what is at risk if the global community refuses to take swift action to reignite the drive to  universal access.

The world’s political leaders must hear directly from you. Your stories from the front-lines must fill their inboxes. You must tell them the impact that treatment and prevention scale-up are having in your communities and what is at stake as their commitment falters. Whether you live in a G8, G20 or African Union nation, you must tell them that their leadership is key to turning the tide on HIV. Please join with us as we fight for bold action on universal access.