UN envoy lauds global agency for women
TORONTO, 19 November: Imagine a world that is run by women.
With those words, epic orator Stephen Lewis concluded an intellectually rousing and impassioned address that brought the sold-out crowd of 1.200, at the University of Victoria this week to its feet – several times.
Lewis, the UN Secretary-Generals special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, who leaves his post in December, said he wept openly at the recent recommendation on UN reform to create the world bodys first full-fledged agency for women.
– The one last thing I wanted to do was be around for the creation of the international womens agency, said Lewis, 69, in an interview after his speech.
– It means more to me than almost anything else. I am happy to be leaving on that note, he said before autographing for supporters his book Race Against Time. It is a compilation of his 2005 Massey Lectures, a searing indictment (svidende dom) of our failure to help those dying in Africa.
Lewis urged audience members to get involved in the new agency for women.
He told them they could start by urging Robert Greenhill, president of the Canadian International Development Agency (Canadas Danida), to ensure that a powerful woman with an international profile is selected to lead the agency.
The international body should also be guaranteed 1 billion US dollar (henved 6 milliarder DKR) in funding. – Otherwise, it will not be able to make the impact that it should make, he noted.
Married 43 years to social activist, feminist and former newspaper columnist Michele Landsberg, Lewis said “gender equality means that 52 per cent of the worlds population who have been
Inequality between the sexes is a life and death issue for women in Africa – where they are more susceptible (udsatte for) than men to HIV/AIDS because of a cultural inability to reject or protect themselves during intercourse. There are also issues of infected men with a view of sexual entitlement, and husbands who cheat.
As those women die, they often leave behind starving orphans. Lewis said society as a whole will suffer from this dramatic “redefinition of the family” of aged grandparents raising multiple orphans or older children becoming heads of households. – Trauma meets trauma, he said.
During his address, Lewis repeated criticisms of former US president Bill Clinton, who failed during his term to stop Rawandas genocide or to adequately help those dying of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
But Lewis said he now has the “highest respect” for the man who, through the Clinton Foundation, is moving broadly and swiftly on the ground to provide effective prevention and treatment programs for HIV/AIDS in Africa. – I am quite bowled over (forbløffet), Lewis said.
The Stephen Lewis Foundation in three years has raised more than 17 million dollar and supports more than 150 grass-roots projects in 14 African countries.
Lewis reminded the audience the US alone is spending 10 billion dollar (henved 60 milliarder DKR) monthly to fight conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – yet the world has yet to raise that amount of money in one year to “to fight a pandemic which has taken 25 million lives and has 40 million people in its grip”.
Kilde: The Push Journal
