Seeking to draw up a global balance sheet of the United Nations battle against HIV/AIDS, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today held his first annual consultations with his special envoys dealing with the pandemic on a regional basis as well as with Peter Piot, Executive Director of the joint UN programme on the disease (UNAIDS).
Seeking to draw up a global balance sheet of the United Nations battle against HIV/AIDS, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today held his first annual consultations with his special envoys dealing with the pandemic on a regional basis as well as with Peter Piot, Executive Director of the joint UN programme on the disease (UNAIDS).
Mr. Annan saw the meeting as an opportunity for the four envoys - who deal with AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and Africa - to assess the situation in their respective regions, including the performance of the UN and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a UN spokesman said.
The Secretary-General told the envoys at the closed-door meeting that AIDS is a priority issue for the UN system, and for him personally, and stressed the envoys' value in reaching out to countries as they respond to the AIDS epidemic.
The meeting came a day after Mr. Annan hosted a summit of executives from the worldwide media at UN Headquarters in New York, where the media leaders made major commitments towards expanding public knowledge and understanding about HIV/AIDS.
The envoys at today's meetings were George Alleyne for Latin America and the Caribbean; Lars Kellings for Eastern Europe; Stephen Lewis for Africa; and Nafis Sadik for Asia and the Pacific.