Here is a slide on the Australian role in developing Myanmar's last national strategic plan from a talk given by Bruce Parnell. Good on yer, mates. One wonders whether citizens of any other countries had a role ...
The slide is attached.
[him] moderator
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Myanmar National Strategic Plan on HIV and AIDS 2006 - 2010
Australians’ roles in this one:
• Lead consultants (WHO, UNAIDS)
• INGO representative on Steering Committee
• People living with HIV indirectly supported by AFAO, APN+ (involvement in many ways, in many countries)
• Review of National AIDS Program:
– Team leader
– Two UN regional reps (UNICEF, UNAIDS)
• UN and INGO in-country staff, ongoing programs
• NGO capacity building Australian support
– UNICEF, World Vision, Burnet
• AusAID encouraged the process
• AusAID then part of Three Diseases Fund
• Australian member of Three Diseases Fund board (for technical skills, not because Australian)
Quite right, your point is well taken. The [him] moderator should have posted the link to the entire presentation so that the slide could not be taken out of context. Here is the URL for the entire presentation.
http://www.hivconsortium.org.au/images/forum%20presentations/bruce_parnell_presentation_website.pdf
[him] moderator
Oh dear, to be cited completely out of context. The slide comes from a presentation I was invited to give in Australia last year, to Australians who had formed a "Consortium on HIV", which they did on invitation of Ausaid, which now funds them to build the capacity of civil society groups in countries of Asia and The Pacific. The main point I was making through the presentation is that no Australians should assume that what we do in Asia and The Pacific is the only thing Australians do, nor that Ausaid funded NGO programs are the only things that Australians work on, but that they are all part of a much bigger picture.
Hence, my conclusion was along the lines of "Let's have a bit of humility about each of our own roles, while still being proud of what Australians contribute overall". So I think it is unfair to have my slide appearing in this completely different context, along with the snide remarks as though I was boasting. I do, of course, feel proud of the range of things that Australians contribute to responses to HIV. We did, after all, work with many other partners in Myanmar to produce what was a reasonably good strategy, for the first time including harm reduction for drug users in that country's responses to the epidemic. And advocated to our own government to fund lots of it. Sorry if this saved lives. How arrogant of us. By the way, Burnet Institute is not part of the Australian HIV Consortium.
Bruce Parnell
Burnet Institute
p.s. I'm well aware how easy it is to get things sent to you out of context, so I bear no long term grudges about this