Speeches 

“I am a very lucky little boy” - 11 year old Nkosi Johnson (one of the 15 million (likely to reach 28 million) AIDS orphans by 2010) to the 13th International AIDS Conference, Durban, July 2000

I am delighted to stand here among you today and to share a few observations as we contemplate how to ensure hope amid the horrors of AIDS.

Parliamentarians for Global Action, is a unique international network of over 1300 legislators from more than 100 countries. Since its inception in 1978, with the purpose of disarmament and nuclear, non-proliferation, the organization has grown to incorporate a wide range of international issues.

Currently PGA has three programmes: Peace and Democracy; International Law and Human Rights; and finally the programme that houses PGA’s HIV/AIDS initiative, the Sustainable Development, Health and Population.

The Third Provincial Parliamentary Seminar on HIV/AIDS Policy is the fourth in a succession of forums on HIV/AIDS within Pakistan and part of wider-reaching seminar series on HIV/AIDS. The sub-regional seminar on HIV/AIDS policy held in Islamabad, Pakistan in January 2005 was PGA’s first event to address HIV/AIDS. As a follow-up to this successful event, PGA conducted two provincial level seminars in Pakistan and a second sub-regional seminar in Bangladesh during 2006.

It is your participation and engagement that makes this seminar valuable and instrumental in carrying out the National HIV/AIDS Framework at the provincial level, addressing specific needs of target populations, and in advancing the Millennium Development Goals, the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action and the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.

PGA’s efforts in HIV/AIDS policy in South Asia, thus far, have aimed to achieve three main objectives. The first goal, which is to provide parliamentarians with the opportunity to engage in peer dialogues to help increase the political will to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is met by this series of seminars. As a result of these seminars, PGA hopes to achieve its next two objectives: firstly, to motivate parliamentarians to allocate resources towards positive practices in the prevention, treatment and care of HIV/AIDS; and secondly, to encourage parliamentarians to support policies that promote prevention, decrease the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, promote safe reproductive health strategies, and address the needs of vulnerable groups.

What is your response to the demands of this day? What is your capacity to deliver? What is your knowledge of the times? And what is your ability to deliver practical results to your people?

We have much to learn from those whose time among us was tragically terminated by the scourge of AIDS. At the July 2000 conference in Durban, HIV sufferer 11 year old Nkosi Johnson told the world “I am a very lucky little boy” – and yet he was one of the 15 million AIDS orphans, a number likely to reach 28 million by 2010.

30,000 children die every day from malnutrition. This is the equivalent of seventy-five Boeing 747 aircraft filled with children every day who perish from malnutrition. And to think we spend billions on anti-baldness medications – I don’t even consider baldness a disease! Perhaps this emphasises the ignorance and vanity of many of the wealthy industrial nations – these resources could be better used in research for AIDS.

Each of you is a leader – the embodiment of your community. As Members of Parliament and leaders of civil societies, we summon the richest – and often the simplest – treasures in our community, to the call for service based upon the understanding of the substance of each member.

The ‘Foreign Affairs’ Journal (January 2007) informs us that the predominant emotion of Asia is hope. We are here to ensure that hope is universally distributed. Let us keep hope alive.

Abraham Lincoln, when asked to summarise his greatest gifts as a leader, replied ‘Storytelling. People are influenced by vivid characterisation, plots, challenges and outcomes……be a story teller”. Then in time to come people will look back at our discussion today and declare ‘that was a tipping point in the mobilisation of resources for dealing with AIDS’. But this is not just about AIDS; it is more about our abilities as creative representatives of the communities yet to come – our abilities to bequeath them the best opportunities for rich lived and reverent sharing of life – just do it!

Let me close in Maori, the indigenous tongue of New Zealand, the tanga whenua, the people of the land. E ngâ iwi, e ngâ roa, e ngâ whâu e whâ. Ti hei mauri ora, tena kotou.

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