I am most delighted that you are able to join us today for the official launch of The Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA).

The Commission has been convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.

Former President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda, who will be making today's Keynote address is one of its Patrons, as is the Prime Minister of Mozambique, His Excellency, Pascal Mocumbi, who was with us yesterday.

I am the Chairman of the Commission. The Secretary-General has also appointed 2O Commissioners, African and non-African, from numerous backgrounds, but all united by a common drive to increase the scale of our struggle against HIV/AIDS, to work with me.

They include Dr. Peter Piot, Director of UNAIDS, and Milly Katana of the Health Rights Action Group in Uganda who are with me on the podium this afternoon.

A large number of other Commissioners are also here today with us, seated in the front of the room.

We have had very substantive and fruitful discussion over the past two days, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all very much for their commitment, their energy and their vision.

Given the vital ongoing efforts of a number of people and organisations, many of them represented by individuals who are now serving on CHGA, you would be right if you were to ask the following questions:

1. First, why is there a need for a new Commission focusing on the link between HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa? Isn't Peter Piot at UNAIDS already overseeing similar work?
   
2. Second, aren't many NGOs and researchers also focusing on the impact of HIV/AIDs on women, families, communities and social structures?

In that regard, I would like to take a few minutes to explain the rationale for CHGA.

I will then hand over to my fellow Commissioners, Peter Piot and Milly Katana, for them to add their perspectives on the significance of the Commission.

Thereafter we will take a few brief questions from the floor, before Dr.Kaunda makes his keynote address.

So what do we mean by the governance dimension of the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Ladies and Gentleman,

At this stage in the history of HIV/AIDS, many may find it difficult to think of the devastation being brought by the disease on our families as a critical challenge to the future governance of our communities.

But if, as we do at ECA, you see good governance as an issue of the capable state, then you will define governance as society's ability to maintain efficient public institutions, to produce and execute sound policies, deliver quality public services, promote the rule of law, and provide an enabling environment for the public sector and civil society to play their respective roles. In that context, HIV/AIDS must clearly be seen as the most critical challenge to governance on our continent today.

The governance challenges of the pandemic occur at all levels and all sectors of society.

As I speak to you, the vital signs are evident enough. Across our communities, parents are dying or burying their children; a generation of fathers and mothers is being lost, leaving grandparents to grieve and raise the next generation.

Yet among too many of our people it is almost as if this deadly disease does not exist. Denial is still the norm.

But even more worrying is the fact that the death toll from AIDS is expected to continue rising before peaking around the end of this decade.

This means that the worst of the epidemic's impact on our families and communities is yet to come. And the future will not represent the past.

The implications of this human tragedy reach deep into the structure of economies, the capacity of institutions, the integrity of communities and the viability of families.

For African governments, the cost of failing to fully appreciate the development implications of HIV/AIDS and in particular the need to keep HIV infected people alive for as long as humanly possible, will be too high to contemplate.

Our institutions and societies simply cannot afford the human resource losses implied by high rates of HIV. The very future of our societies is tied to keeping these people alive longer.

There is no escaping the fact that the loss of teachers, health workers, and civil servants at the rates witnessed today threatens deterioration and eventual collapse.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is this challenge that compelled the Secretary General to establish the Commission for HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa.

This Commission will act as a source of advice and analysis for African policymakers in their engagement with the next generation intervention strategies.

It will present a final report in June 2005. However, as an activist commission its members will be presenting their views and decisions to key policy makers, such as finance ministers, without delay.

As such, over the next two years, CHGA aims to chart the way forward in the following three ways.

1. It will assist governments in the process of identifying what the long-term human resource implications of the loss due to AIDs will be.
   
2. It will provide governments with practical recommendations on up-scaling treatment programmes for all those who need it.
   
3. It will encourage deeper awareness of the gender impact of the pandemic.

To conclude, I would also like to stress, that CHGA is here to complement and add value where possible for, in the words of one of our Commissioner's :