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CSIS HIV/AIDS Task Force: Phase III

In its seventh year, the Task Force’s principal focus was on two critical issues: first, raising the profile and improving the effectiveness of U.S. support to global prevention efforts and facilitating a bi-partisan discussion of global HIV prevention policy; and second, examining how U.S. leadership can facilitate the sustainability of HIV/AIDS programs, both in terms of resource flows and in situating HIV/AIDS responses within a broader strategy to address gaps in gender equity, health infrastructure, human capacity, and international collaboration on global health. A senior delegation to Vietnam in January 2006 examined the special challenges of halting a pandemic in a low HIV prevalence country driven primarily by injecting drug use. The Task Force continues to engage on the emerging dynamics of the epidemic in Russia, China, and India with recent delegation visits in the Spring and Summer of 2007.

CSIS HIV/AIDS Task Force: Phase II

The second phase, which ran from 2003- September of 2005, focused on building U.S. bilateral engagement in the large and populous Second Wave states of Africa, China, India, and Russia.

Second Wave states are where the most critical prevention challenges, and future care and treatment challenges, reside. Each of these states is at an important juncture where it is possible, through concerted effort, to avert the worst possible outcomes. The Task Force has two related core goals with respect to Second Wave states. First, it aims to build Washington's commitment to an informed, enlarged U.S. bilateral engagement to preempt full-blown HIV/AIDS epidemics in Africa, China, India, and Russia. Second, the Task Force aims to shape the perceptions of non-health elites in each of the Second Wave countries, bringing into a dialogue with them analyses and emerging thinking on the risks posed by HIV/AIDS and options for early and informed action.
The Second Wave of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: China, India, Russia, Ethiopia, Nigeria: Conference Report

CSIS HIV/AIDS Task Force: Phase I

February 27, 2003 - Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) chaired the second full session of the CSIS Task Force's Eminent Persons Panel. The Task Force issued a statement urging Congress and the administration to take quick bipartisan action to translate into action President Bush's announcement of a $15-billion initiative to combat HIV/AIDS primarily in Africa and the Caribbean. The statement drew on four new CSIS analyses four outlining pragmatic policy steps.
Second meeting of the Eminent Persons Panel

February 26, 2003 - Paula Dobriansky, U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs, James Morris, executive director of the World Food Program, and Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, participated in a half-day conference to examine the destabilizing impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Dr. Craveo led an expert panel examining the increasing "feminization" of HIV/AIDS and offering policy recommendations to reduce the acute vulnerabilities of women and girls. James Morris led a discussion on the pandemic's impact on food insecurity and its devastating effects on rural household economies in southern Africa. The final panel examined new research on AIDS orphans and policing in South Africa by Martin Schonteich, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies; the Ethiopian military's strategy to contain HIV/AIDS within its ranks, by General Tsadkan Gebre Tensae; and the effects of political instability and misrule in Zimbabwe on the acceleration of the epidemic.
Committee on Gender

Oct. 3-4, 2002 - Senior officials and HIV/AIDS experts from China, India, Nigeria, Russia, and Ethiopia convened on Oct. 3-4 to convey to leading U.S. policymakers and health activists front-line perspective on the battle against HIV/AIDS. Governmental and nongovernmental representatives from the five countries will present to a senior U.S. audience the lead factors driving the AIDS pandemic in their respective countries, current national efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, including critical gaps and emerging challenges, and opportunities for pre-emptive U.S. engagement to fight the disease.
The Second Wave of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: China, India, Russia, Ethiopia, Nigeria: Conference Report

June 13, 2002 - Senators Frist and Kerry chaired the first formal session of the Task Force's Eminent Persons Panel on June 13, 2002 in Washington, D.C., issuing the Task Force's seven-point "Call to Action" for U.S. leadership in battling the epidemic. Attendees included Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, and Congressman Jim McDermott. Special guests also included Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, Ayanda Ntsaluba, South African Director General for Health, and Christoph Koepke, head of DaimlerChrysler/South Africa.
Summary of the June 13 event