Watch our top five favorite moments from the PEPFAR at 20 event, marking 20 years of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, including discussions with President George W. Bush, 66th Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former President of Tanzania Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and Bill Gates.
1. PEPFAR supports peace
“Health equity is a foundation for peace. It’s hard to have peace in a society in which a disease is ravaging its villages and people. Another reason to support PEPFAR is that it yields peace, or the foundation of peace.”
— President George W. Bush
2. PEPFAR has saved millions of lives
“[President Bush] may not have predicted, could not have predicted, that two decades on, we’d be celebrating the birthday of a program that has given 25 million people decades more birthdays of their own.”
— Bono, leader singer of U2 and co-founder of ONE and (RED)
3. Support for PEPFAR must continue
“[PEPFAR] is the most generous thing America has done since the Marshall plan, and it has been extremely well-executed. And we still need it very badly.”
— Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
4. There’s more work to be done
“Even as we celebrate 20 years of PEPFAR’s impact, we have more work to do to reach the United Nations’ goal of ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic by 2030. We continue to see persistent inequities in access to treatment for vulnerable populations.”
— U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
5. The program’s impact has gone well beyond preventing and treating HIV/AIDS
“Although PEPFAR’s mandate is the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV, its effect has gone well beyond this.”
— Mrs. Laura W. Bush
