by Nigel Marsh - Hope Communications

BARCELONA, MONDAY - "When you hear the head of UNAIDS saying we are losing the fight against AIDS so far, you know we have reached a critical moment in the world," says Ken Casey, the leader of World Vision's team at the AIDS 2002 event in Barcelona this week.

"We cannot turn out back any longer on this crisis. History will judge each of us according to the way we have met what is perhaps the greatest challenge our race have faced, and it is a pleasure to be able to mix with people from all sides of the fight and solemnly affirm that World Vision is fully committed to playing our part."

Casey was responding to opening remarks made by Peter Piot, the director of UNAIDS, who challenged delegates to the Fourteenth International AIDS Conference in Barcelona on Sunday, July 7 with a sobering analysis of the progress so far, and the scale of the response that is still needed.

"We have US$2.8 billion available this year for AIDS programs, prevention and treatment, and orphan programs in the developing world," said Piot. "We have a gap, at a conservative estimate, of $7 billion."

Casey is leading an international World Vision team at the conference. As they network and talk to journalists they are taking the consistent line that the recent increases in global funding for HIV and AIDS are welcome, but that more should be done - and more should be directed to the grass roots where it can be demonstrated to have most impact.

Such a message is clearly being supported by the organisers of the conference. The Community Chair of AIDS2002, Shaun Mellors - who is living with AIDS - told journalists on Sunday not to let the world public grow complacent about the issue. He added, controversially, that the UN Conferences he helps to organize were becoming over-large 'circuses'. "We need to make people angry again, we have to get back to the passion with which we started. We all need to do everything we can to bring principled leadership and strategic activism."

Casey said he and the early members of the World Vision team who were present throughout the day yesterday - Christo Greyling from South Africa, Richard Wamimbi from Uganda, Marwin Meier from South Africa and Nigel Marsh from Kenya - were conscious of the need to use every valuable second at the conference to underline the importance World Vision attaches to partnerships, to field-based work, to churches and faith-based organisations, and to increasing the flow of resources to help with prevention strategies, care for the infected, affected, and orphans and vulnerable children.

"Anything we can do to help elevate the attention of the powerful decision makers of the world to the realities of HIV and AIDS on the international stage is time well spent," he said. "These conferences are an opportunity to bring together the best minds, the best resources, the most powerful people in the world - our challenge is to work and pray to ensure we see the best results in the world, too. HIV/AIDS is only going to be resolved through integrated effort, not by a lot of one-off initiatives. Everyone can learn from everyone else here - we can get synergy working together."

Nearly 15,000 scientists and clinicians, health care workers, public health agents, people living with AIDS, politicians, NGOs and journalists are now gathered in the Catalunian city of Barcelona, on the Spanish coast. It's a significant number - roughly the same number are calculated to get infected by HIV around the world each day. The conference programme is packed with plenary sessions, satellite events, seminars, learning sessions, poster presentations, cultural events and activist group meetings.