contribution to the global AIDS response

Interview with Sigrun Mogedal, recently honoured by Norway for her contribution to the global AIDS response

13 January 2011

Dr Sigrun Mogedal, former AIDS Ambassador of Norway and recipient of Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav

Dr Sigrun Mogedal, former Norwegian AIDS Ambassador, has received the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for "distinguished services rendered to the country and humanity". Dr Mogedal, a physician by training, has contributed significantly towards international health cooperation.

When Dr Mogedal visited Geneva recently, UNAIDS took the opportunity to talk to her about the future of the AIDS response, the importance of youth leadership, and the Order of St. Olav:

UNAIDS: What are the challenges facing the AIDS response in the coming years?
Sigrun Mogedal: We need a change from the old way of thinking which was that if you mobilise more money, you’re going to fix HIV. There has been an expectation that solutions will come from the donors, rather than from each country themselves. Turning this idea around is one of the big challenges in all areas of global health.

Also, those of us that have been part of global health for a long time have come to a point where we repeat, rather than renew, ways of doing things.

While we have come a long way, maybe now there is a need for new people, new creativity and new ways of doing business in both health and AIDS. Therefore we need to create a space for new people, for young people, with their creativity, their energy, their ways of understanding complexity and ways forward.

UNAIDS: Are you seeing this in the AIDS response today?
Sigrun Mogedal: I think the new UNAIDS strategy is taking one step in that direction. I think the way UNAIDS is talking about taking AIDS out of isolation is another step. What we see in China and South Africa who are both taking charge [of their own epidemics] is definitely new. Yet some of the choices you need to make in each country are not politically attractive; it’s an agenda you don’t win elections from it. So, you need a push in order to make sure that the agenda isn’t lost.

In global discussions it tends to be easier to mobilise for issues where there are fairly simple solutions. With the HIV response, we are now aware that some of the hardest things—in terms of human rights or marginalised populations—we haven’t yet been able to address neither in the north nor in the south