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Calls mount to sack UNAIDS chief
GENEVA, Dec 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The fate of UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe
hung in the balance on Tuesday as he faced the agency’s oversight body after
an expert report blasted his leadership and called for his removal.
The organisation founded to coordinate the global response to the HIV/AIDS
epidemic has been plunged into a crisis unprecedented in its 24-year history.
Seeking to ease concerns after UNAIDS was accused of mishandling sexual
assault allegations against a former deputy chief, Sidibe initiated the
Independent Expert Panel report to study the agency’s culture and propose
reforms.
But the findings released last week were a stunning rebuke of the Malian
national’s nine-year tenure.
It said UNAIDS was “broken” due to “defective leadership” and accused
Sidibe of overseeing a work environment that tolerated sexual harassment and
abuse where a “cult of personality” surrounding the executive director saw
benefits doled out as favours by Sidibe and his cadre of top allies.
It also said Sidibe “accepted no responsibility” for anything that has
gone wrong under his watch.
“For… UNAIDS to regain a culture of dignity and respect, a change in
leadership has become necessary,” the report said.
UNAIDS’ oversight body, the Programme Coordinating Board (PCB), opened a
three-day meeting in Geneva on Tuesday that may decide Sidibe’s fate.
With activists demanding immediate change, pressure is mounting on UN
chief Antonio Guterres to act.
– Guterres under fire –
“What is the point of having an independent investigation if you don’t
intend to do anything about the findings?” the head of the AIDS Healthcare
Foundation Michael Weinstein, told AFP.
Weinstein, who leads the world’s largest HIV/AIDS organisation, stressed
that the panel’s conclusions were “unequivocal,” and that if the Guterres
does not act soon “it would truly be a shocking dereliction of duty.”
Hours after the report’s release, Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric
noted that Sidibe had pledged “to create a model working environment for all
staff.”
The UN chief would reserve comment until the PCB “deliberations” were
complete.
Code Blue, a pressure group that has been at the forefront of exposing the
rot at UNAIDS, blasted that response as “astonishing.”
“What does it take to be fired by the United Nations?” it said.
– Sidibe response ‘surreal’ –
UNAIDS on Friday said that Sidibe has no intention of resigning.
The executive director, accused of fostering a “patriarchal culture” where
staff do not report sexual misconduct because they fear inaction or
retaliation, said in a statement that he had been “inspired by the #MeToo
movement.”
“I have taken on board the criticisms made by the Panel…I will spend the
next 12 months implementing this agenda for change,” Sidibe said.
The editor of the influential medical journal The Lancet, Richard Horton,
called Sidibe’s response “surreal.”
“Nowhere does (Sidibe) accept that he was responsible for the toxic work
environment that his leadership created. Nowhere does he acknowledge the
grievous harms done to his colleagues at UNAIDS,” Horton wrote in an online
commentary.
“Both the PCB and Antonio Guterres now have a duty to deliver on the
recommendations of the Expert Panel” and fire Sidibe, he added.
“The reputation of UNAIDS and the UN system depends on it.”
It is not yet clear if the PCB will make a formal recommendation on
Sidibe’s future.
UNAIDS spokeswoman Sophie Barton-Knott told AFP that the panel report
would be an important subject at the closed-door PCB meeting.
Britain, which chairs the PCB, said it “cannot tolerate” the practices
detailed in the report.
“We expect immediate and far-reaching action from UNAIDS over this to
address the findings,” a spokesperson for the Department for International
Development (DFID) told AFP in an email.
BSS/AFP/RY/1750 hrs