Stephen Lewis on Elizabeth Pisani

From the Globe and Mail: The former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa reviews The Wisdom of Whores. In typical Stephen Lewis fashion, it makes for a fascinating read!

To learn more about what he agrees with, what he criticises, and his own editorial comments on the responses in Africa and among "high-risk" populations, harm reduction, resources, abstinence, the Bush administration, testing and human rights, treatment vs prevention arguments, poverty and development lenses, gender inequality, the absence of female sexual autonomy and the UN apparatus... read the full review!

"The Wisdom of Whores ends with the desperate question: "What the hell difference are we making anyway?" I ask myself that 10 times a day. The sad, sad truth about the Pisani book is that the rude language and controversial nostrums will allow it to be dismissed by policy makers at all levels. But it should be mandatory, not voluntary, reading: Pisani is lucid, colourful, insightful and impatient. In her last chapter, she says quite plainly that we know what to do and we're just not doing it. She's right. The worst thing that's happened to AIDS is that the same tired, intellectually ossified bureaucrats in international aid agencies, in many governments, in multilateral financial vehicles and above all in the United Nations, are calling the shots.

Elizabeth Pisani is a far straighter shooter than most of them put together."

Read the rest... and don't forget about the event at the International AIDS conference in Mexico that includes a conversation between IRMA and Ms. Pisani!