AAP
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Cathy Alexander and Danny Rose
August 30, 2010 - 11:49AMUnited Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has called on a Melbourne conference to do more to "keep the promise" of saving the lives of women and children.
More than 1400 delegates from 70 countries have gathered for the opening of the largest ever UN event to be held in Australia.
It's aimed at charities who work with the UN, and is focusing on improving health, particularly saving the lives of mothers and infants and preventing HIV-AIDS.
Mr Ban told the conference that the UN was falling behind on some of its health goals.
"We still have some distance to go," the UN secretary-general told the opening session by videolink.
"I welcome your focus on women's and children's health, this is the area where we are most behind."
Mr Ban urged charities to use their passion to rise to the challenge.
"You understand like no others the daily challenges faced by the most vulnerable, you have the passion and networks to spread our messages far and wide," he said.
"We need to hear your voices."
Mr Ban said he wanted to work with charities to "keep the promise" of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - eight targets the UN set back in 2000.
The three-day "Advance Global Health" conference at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is focusing on the health-related targets, ahead of a major summit of world leaders next month on achieving the MDGs.
Mr Ban praised Melbourne for holding the conference, saying it was a sign of "Australia's strong support for the UN", and showcased how much a multicultural city like Melbourne had to offer the world.
UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe told the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) represented that they had played a vital role in breaking the conspiracy of silence about the disease, and rolling out treatment programs in the remotest parts of the world.
The number of impoverished HIV-positive people in treatment had increased 12-fold over the past five years, from less than 500,000 to more than five million on treatment today.
"We have been reducing new infection by 17 per cent, averted 400,000 new infections in Africa alone," Mr Sidibe said.
"You have been pushing for universal access, not as a luxury ... Helping us when the government is not able to reach those people who are criminalised, those people who are hiding themselves, who are going underground because of their social status, who they are or what they love."
Mr Sidibe also said more work was needed to halt the mother-to-child transmission of HIV in developing nations, and to ensure HIV programs did not operate in isolation from other programs focused on disease.
"Our vision is very simple, our vision is nothing less than zero new infections, no discrimination and zero deaths," he also said.
"We will reach zero only by harnessing the dynamism we saw throughout the fight against HIV."
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