Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa [Paperback]

The AIDS pandemic of Africa has killed 19 million people, 4 million of them children. It is the world's worst health disaster since the Middle Ages. The problems are so staggering they seem incomprehensible. But Canadian diplomat Stephen Lewis manages to explain their roots, give them a human face, and outline solutions in his important book Race Against Time. As the United Nations Secretary General's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Lewis has an insider's view of the political stonewalling of Western countries as well as the brutal realities of AIDS-ravaged villages in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Lewis is the son of federal New Democratic Party leader David Lewis and was himself head of the Ontario NDP. He is frank that he has "a love affair with Africa"--first kindled when he was a teacher in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda during the early 1960s. After a stint as Canadian Ambassador to the UN, Lewis launched into a new career as an international diplomat, holding top jobs at UNICEF and the World Health Organization. He doesn't hide his fury at Western complicity in Africa's AIDS catastrophe. He says African countries were brought to their knees by World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies that forced many governments to gut health care and social programs in the 1980s. Africa's hamstrung societies were unable to care for their citizens when AIDS struck. "I have spent the last four years watching people die," he writes. "The ongoing plight of Africa forces me to perpetual rage. It's all so unnecessary, so crazy." Lewis's book is passionately written and poignantly brings home the truth that the distant tragedy in Africa is not so distant at all. --Alex Roslin

"...spells out the problems with so much heart that it's hard to finish the book without wanting to seek out some way to get involved." -- Quill and Quire, November, 2005

"I have spent the last four years watching people die." With these wrenching words, diplomat and humanitarian Stephen Lewis opens his 2005 CBC Massey Lectures. Lewis's determination to bear witness to the desperate plight of so many in Africa and elsewhere is balanced by his unique, personal, and often searing insider's perspective on our ongoing failure to help. Lewis recounts how, in 2000, the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York introduced eight Millennium Development Goals, which focused on fundamental issues such as education, health, and cutting poverty in half by 2015. In audacious prose, alive with anecdotes ranging from maddening to hilarious to heartbreaking, Lewis shows why and how the international community is falling desperately short of these goals. This edition includes an afterword by Lewis, covering events after the lectures were delivered in fall 2005.

*Winner of two CBA Libris Awards for Non-Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year.

*Finalist for the Pearson Writer’s Trust Non-Fiction Prize, The Trillium Book Award.

#1 National Bestseller

“I have spent the last four years watching people die.” With these wrenching words, diplomat and humanitarian Stephen Lewis opens his 2005 Massey Lectures. In 2000, the United Nations introduced eight Millennium Development Goals on fundamental issues such as education, health, and cutting poverty in half by 2015. In audacious prose, alive with anecdotes ranging from maddening to hilarious to heartbreaking, Lewis shows why and how the international community is falling desperately short of these goals. He probes the appalling gap between vision and current reality, be he also offers bracingly attainable solutions.

This striking, redesigned second edition contains a new Afterword by Lewis, bringing us up-to-date on important events that have transpired in the months since the lectures were delivered.

WINNER: CBA LIBRIS AWARDS FOR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AND AUTHOR OF THE YEAR FINALIST: PEARSON WRITERS'TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE, TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD #! NATIONAL BESTSELLER "I have spent the last four years watching people die." With these wrenching words, diplomat and humanitarian Stephen Lewis opens his 2005 Massey Lectures. In 2000, the United Nations introduced eight Millennium Development Goals on fundamental issues such as education, health, and cutting poverty in half by 2015. In audacious prose, alive with anecdotes ranging from maddening to hilarious to heartbreaking, Lewis shows why and how the international community is falling desperately short of these goals. He probes the appalling gap between vision and current reality, but he also offers bracingly attainable solutions. Stephen Lewis is the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation (www.stephenlewisfoundation.org). His previous roles include Canadian ambassador to the UN, special advisor on Africa to the UN Secretary-General, and deputy executive director of UNICEF. He was named "Canadian of the Year" by Maclean's magazine in 2003 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2005.

Stephen Lewis is the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation (www.stephenlewisfoundation.org). His previous roles include Canadian ambassador to the UN, special advisor on Africa to the UN Secretary-General, and deputy executive director of UNICEF. He was named “Canadian of the Year” by Maclean’s magazine in 2003 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2005.

Race Against Time — Second Edition: excerpt From the Afterword: A UN meeting was planned for May 31 to June 2, 2006, to review the progress that had been made since a Declaration of Commitment on hiv/aids had been endorsed by the international community some five years earlier. I had occasion to be speaking again with Mark in early February, when he suddenly said that he had a delicate/awkward matter to raise with me. Apparently there was a possibility that President Bush would attend the UN meeting scheduled for the end of May, and the UN desperately wanted him to be there. I had been told (I can surmise by whom, but it was never revealed) that if I were to attack the United States before that date, the president probably wouldn't come. You must understand that though I take myself overly seriously from time to time, it was a bit much to think that my words could deter the President of the UNited States. Nonetheless, Mark said to me (I think I'm capturing it with authentic accuracy), "Stephen, I must ask you, no, I must plead with you, no, I must instruct you that you are not to attack U.S. policy before the meeting in May. I don't care what you do after that, but beforehand, you must refrain from criticism." I could scarce credit what I was hearing. I laughed again, and told Mark that it seemed to me that things were verging on the absurd. On the other hand, I also assured him that I had no immediate plans to go on the attack, and if I did, I'd let him know in advance and resign with appropriate dignity. I relate these surreal circumstances because they speak to an UNlovely pattern of Pavlovian obeisance to the UNited States. Apparently, criticism is permitted of the G8, Tony Blair's Commission on Africa, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the Government of South Africa, the Government of Zimbabwe, the King of Swaziland, and the United Nations itself — all of whom this book excoriates from time to time — but almost never the sacrosanct "integrity" of the United States of America. But that's only one small part of my postscript to these lectures. There's much more, and of a far more telling nature.