Global Call to Fight HIV/AIDS UN Secretary-General Urges Business, Governments to Fight Disease by Nickolas Theros In 20 years, AIDS has killed nearly 22 million peopleñ4 million of them children under the age of 15. In Africa alone, 25 million people are infected with the epidemic, and across the world another 11 million struggle against the disease that has no cure. In much of the Caribbean, it is now the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 44. Armed with these disturbing statistics, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Washington, D.C., on May 31 as part of an ongoing effort "to form a global alliance" to battle HIV/AIDS. "HIV/AIDS is a global problem of catastrophic proportions. The world has never before faced a pandemic such as this," Annan told a group of international businesspeople, diplomats and press on June 1 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the chief lobbying group and business federation for 3 million American businesses. Calling the battle against HIV/AIDS a "personal priority," Annan has been traversing the globe since April to call on governments, businesses, philanthropists, health officials and anyone else who would listen, to contribute grea ter resources toward prevention programs, care for the infected, and the elusive search for a cure. At the Chamber of Commerce, Annan attempted to reach out to another sector of society that has not been "fully utilized in the campaign against HIV/AIDS." "Today I come to you, the leaders of American business, representatives of one of the greatest forces in the world.... It is high time we tapped your strengths to the full," he said. Annan tried to persuade gathered businesspeople that AIDS will have a devastating effect on businesses, causing business costs to expand and markets to shrink. Because of the diseaseís tendency to strike in urban areas and infect members of society in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, Annan contended that businesses are losing their most productive human capital. Refuting the myth that AIDS infects the less educated and impoverished, he cited a study in Zaire that "found the highest prevalence rates among white-collar executives, followed by foremen, and then workers." "By 2020, if current trends continue," he said, "the total workforce in 15 countries analyzed by the International Labor Organization will have shrunk by 24 million people as a result of AIDS." The UN diplomat told the gathered business leaders that they must first draw up effective AIDS policies. Using the example of the automaker Volkswagen do Brasil, he said that the companyís decision in 1996 to launch a comprehensive program for HIV prevention, education and treatment, resulted in a 99 percent reduction in hospitalization among HIV-positive workers, and a 40 percent reduction in the cost of treatment and care by 1999. "This led to increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, reduced loss of employees to AIDS, and higher morale in the workforce. As a result, many families kept their breadwinners, and many children still have parents," Annan said. Annan believes that defeating the disease requires a five-point strategy: preventing further spread of the epidemic, reducing transmission from mother to child, ensuring care and treatment for all, delivering scientific breakthroughs, and protecting those made most vulnerable by the epidemic. Annan concluded his speech by saying that total spending on AIDS prevention in developing countries needed to rise by $7 billion to $10 billion a year to bring the disease under controlófive times the sum that citizens, national governments and international donors currently spend. Hoping to calm the accountants in the room, he added that "Harvard has estimated that AIDS has already cost the world more than $500 billion. So $10 billion a year to defeat it seems fairly reasonableñin fact, a bargain." Annan hopes that his speaking tour on AIDS will generate contributions to a "global fund," administered by the UN, that will implement his five-point plan. He had hoped to secure $1 billion in pledges before the start of a special UN session on AIDS on June 25. At the time of his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the secretary general had only secured a $200 million pledge from the Bush administration as the U.S. contribution and a $127 million pledge from France, to be paid out over three years. Despite the sincerity of Annanís speech to American business leaders, some of the businesspeople may have remained unconvinced that business should use profits to fight the disease, while others may have missed Annanís point altogether. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue confused some of the gathered reporters when he asked Annan, immediately after his speech, how businesses could get national governments to contribute more money to the fight against AIDS. Although Annan thanked Donohue for his enthusiasm to lobby governments on his behalf, he looked troubled that his host may have missed the point that he was looking for businesses to contribute a few of their own dollars into the global fund. Things could easily have been worse. After all, in April, Annan and other world leaders had to listen to South African President Thabo Mbeki state that HIV may not cause AIDSófurther insinuating that the correlation was a Western construction and not applicable in Africa. Annanís work is clearly just beginning, but progress is being made. Two weeks after his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the global fund received its first corporate contribution of $1 million, from Credit Suisse. On June 19, the charitable Gates Foundation, belonging to Microsoft owner Bill Gates, pledged $100 million over several years. Nickolas Theros is the assistant editor for The Washington Diplomat.