UNAIDS to get new chief after divisive Sidibe era

AIDS experts have voiced concern over the future of the United Nations body tasked with fighting the epidemic after top officials stood behind a former agency chief accused of serious mismanagement.

Opinions on the former executive director of UNAIDS, the Malian national Michel Sidibe, remain deeply divided.

An Independent Expert Panel (IEP) report commissioned by UNAIDS' governing body said he "created a patriarchal culture tolerating harassment and abuse of authority".

The agency's culture under Sidibe also failed "to uphold the United Nations' laws and values", the IEP said.

But UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is due to choose a new UNAIDS chief within weeks, has continued to praise Sidibe.

Sidibe, who was born in 1952, left UNAIDS in May after a decade-long tenure to become Mali's health minister.

After Sidibe resigned, Guterres applauded his "dedication and championing of an AIDS response that is people-centred and anchored in human rights".

"It is rather unfortunate that the secretary general himself, despite all these problems we have found, would still go ahead and praise (Sidibe)," said Penninah Iutung, the Africa bureau chief for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS organisations.

"Culture change is very difficult," Iutung told AFP, adding that UNAIDS reform will require leadership that does not equivocate about the past.

In an email to AFP, Sidibe did not criticise the IEP report, saying only: "The report was duly considered by the UNAIDS Programme Coordination Board (PCB) together with the UNAIDS Management Response and the PCB has decided on actions it deemed appropriate and relevant."
"The applicable rules were followed."