West betrays aid promises, Lewis says
CBC || November 1, 2005
The UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa is angry at the lack of assistance from the West to fight the epidemic.
Since taking the job four-and-a-half years ago, "I've spent all my time watching people die unnecessarily," Canadian Stephen Lewis told CBC News on Sunday.
About 2.3 million people in Africa died of AIDS last year and more than 25 million live with the disease. Millions of children have been orphaned after their mothers died, and crops are failing because of the deaths of farmers.
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While there have been repeated promises to provide aid, those commitments have been betrayed, Lewis said.
The G-8 leaders made commitments at the Gleneagles summit this summer, but "the promises they make ... are quickly eroded," he said.
"They just don't seem to take it seriously enough."
Lewis said he may be suffering bouts of irrationality about the topic, but it's hard to remain dispassionate when so many people are dying who could be saved.
"It frustrates me terribly," he said, adding that he suffers from despair at times, but will not give in to it.
Lewis has just published Race Against Time, his book about Africa and AIDS based on the Massey Lectures.
He will give two more lectures in the series, in Halifax on Wednesday and Toronto on Friday.
He has complained in the past about the lack of international action and the failure to follow through on aid promises.
Lewis was deputy executive director UNICEF from 1995-1999. From 1984 through 1988, he was Canadian ambassador to the UN and was leader of the Ontario NDP in the 1960s and 1970s.
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