WORLD MEDIA LEADERS GATHER AT HEADQUARTERS FOR LAUNCH OF AIDS INITIATIVE;

TOLD BY SECRETARY-GENERAL, ‘IN THE WORLD OF AIDS, SILENCE IS DEATH’

“If there is anything we have learned in the two decades of this epidemic, it is that in the world of AIDS, silence is death”, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told leaders of more than 20 of the world’s leading media organizations this morning, during a round-table meeting at Headquarters launching the Global Media AIDS Initiative.

The Initiative will explore how the media can create long-lasting public education campaigns and generate further attention to the pandemic.  Participants in this morning’s meeting included leaders from the BBC, China Central TV, Discovery Communications, Inc., MTV Networks International, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, Viacom Inc., and Black Entertainment TV.

The idea of an alliance between the United Nations and the media was generated through the partnership between the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Kaiser Family Foundation, a private foundation with a decade of experience working with media on social campaigns, and supported financially by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Secretary-General told the gathering that experts now agreed HIV/AIDS was the worst epidemic humanity had ever faced.  Its impact had become a devastating obstacle to development.  Yet, among the public at large, there was still a profound lack of knowledge and awareness about the pandemic, especially among young people.  Leaders of the media had the power and the reach to disseminate the information people needed to protect themselves from the disease.

Media leaders could create an enabling environment where individuals were free to explore ways of keeping themselves safe and changing their behaviour as necessary, he said.  Media leaders could designate the fight against HIV/AIDS as a corporate priority and could dedicate airtime to public service messages.  Prominent news coverage of the epidemic could be provided to help ensure it was kept high on the national and global political agenda.

Special education or awareness-raising programmes could be broadcast, he said, noting that many already had combined programmes in a highly creative way, featuring documentaries, concerts, arts programmes, competitions and children’s shows.  The media could also explore HIV/AIDS in mainstream programmes, as had been done in the series “Ordinary People” in China or “Heart and Soul”, developed with UN support in sub-Saharan Africa.  Media could also form partnerships that draw on shared reach and resources, and they could reach out to government departments, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups, offering resources and access to airtime.

“Together, the UN family and the media can build an alliance with an ambitious agenda:  to inform, to educate, to entertain people as a means to giving them the knowledge and incentive they need to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS”, he said in conclusion.

Peter Piot, Executive Director, UNAIDS, said in opening remarks that AIDS was an epidemic of the information age.  Yet, it was precisely the tools of the information age that were the strongest weapons in the fight against the epidemic, as denial, inaction, ignorance, stigma and discrimination were the key forces that allowed it to spread.

He said AIDS was an unprecedented global emergency that threatened the stability and security of African nations and, if left unchecked, could have a devastating impact on nations of Asia and Eastern Europe.  “Perhaps most alarmingly, despite knowing what works, we are not yet reversing its spread”, he continued, saying that more people had been infected with HIV and more people had died of AIDS last year than in any previous one.

Progress in the global response to AIDS had already been made since the 2001 General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, he said, with increased political leadership and commitment and a great increase in resources:  up from $200 million in 1996 to $4.7 billion in 2003.  He was convinced, however, that by acting now, the next generation could be the generation without AIDS.

For the first time in the 20-year history of the epidemic, the world was finally getting serious and taking action, he said.  “What makes today’s meeting historic is your commitment and action to harness the enormous power of your companies in making AIDS part of your core business”, he continued, and said that would have a tremendous impact on the world’s response to the epidemic.

Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation also made a presentation.

Keynote Address by Bill Gates

Bill Gates, Co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation, addressed the luncheon hosted by the Secretary-General in honour of the Global Media Executives.  He was excited, he said, to see those gathered talking about how the media could help stop the AIDS epidemic.  This was a cause that deserved even more visibility than it had gotten to date.  He believed that visibility from the media would make all the difference in the world.

If AIDS was affecting people who lived next to us -– if our neighbours or people we knew were involved in the widespread epidemic; if our community had 30 per cent prevalence, or the rate of orphans was increasing as was the case in many countries in Africa -- our humanitarian instincts would kick in, and we’d view this as the most important emergency, and the scientific work, the educational work and the change in behaviour work would take place.  Unfortunately, this epidemic was growing in the places where the world had the least resources.  In fact, he said, the whole cycle of the epidemic was tied up with the dynamics of the challenges in poor countries.

The AIDS epidemic was not understood as well as it should be, he continued.  It was often easier to cover dramatic accidents, such as a plane crash, than to tell the AIDS story.  A plane crash got media coverage because it was a visual story.  It was hard to make figures come to life.  People could understand the story of a single orphan, but one about 10 million orphans was not evocative as it was hard for people to relate to such a number.  AIDS was the “bad news” in world health, where other improvements were occurring.  HIV would set back Africa for decades to come; yet the threat of AIDS was not unique to Africa.

Visibility provided by the media was important because if people understood the AIDS epidemic, they would be tested, they would change their behaviour, Mr. Gates said, and mentioned the case of Uganda, where AIDS sufferers were able to tell their story through the media.  One of the difficulties in dealing with the epidemic was the stigma attached to AIDS.  In Botswana, for example, people were afraid to be tested because they did not want family and friends to know they had the disease.  People in South Africa had been very surprised to hear that Nelson Mandela would publicly embrace AIDS sufferers.

Many good things had been done in 2003 to fight AIDS, he said.  The United States initiative would translate into good money to fight the disease.  There was a need to sustain and grow that money.  The scale of philanthropy in the United States was good, but donations tended to go to rich countries for research rather than to poor countries.  If people understood that giving would make a difference, they would give more.

In the years to come, the number one disease would be AIDS, Mr. Gates said.  AIDS would kill as many people as those who died in the Second World War, and the number would be even worse if AIDS were not addressed.

Among success media stories, he pointed to a pilot project between the Kaiser Foundation and Viacom, and the BBC’s work in India.  Definite awareness led to behaviour change, he declared.

On a more optimistic note, Mr. Gates spoke about the need for prevention -– making sure that the spread of the disease slowed down.  That, he said, could be done.  Also needed were advances in science -- the use of condoms and the use of microcibes, which would allow women to be protected.

Much good funding was coming along, he said, such as the pilot project in Botswana and the Global Fund.  Political action was starting to happen, although less than half of what could be done was taking place.  He said the media must understand that, as the health of people in poor societies improved, population growth slowed.  The rich countries that produced the medicines should be willing to help the rest of the world.

He said that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had been fantastic in bringing people together on AIDS –- which was a global issue.  The United Nations family was playing their role.  AIDS was not just a bad news story, he said; it was about people making a difference -– volunteers, people persevering and coming together.

Because an AIDS vaccine was more than a decade away, he said education and behaviour change were important.  Much could be done.  For him, AIDS was the most important cause in the world today, and he looked forward to the creative ideas that the participants would come up with today.

* *** *