Stephen Lewis is Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization that works to promote more urgent and more effective global responses to HIV/AIDS. In addition to his work with AIDS-Free World, Lewis is a Professor in Global Health, Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and is the chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in Canada.

Lewis has held several senior United Nations roles spanning two decades, including Canadian ambassador to the UN. He chaired the Committee that drafted the first UN Program on African Economic Recovery and the first International Conference on Climate Change, coordinated an international study on the “Consequences of Armed Conflict on Children” and was appointed by the Organization of African Unity to its “Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda”. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and in 2001, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named him the first Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. His best-selling book, Race Against Time, won the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Award for non-fiction book of the year. In 2005, TIME Magazine listed him among the World’s 100 Most Influential People.

This event was recorded as part of the 6th Annual Chicago Global Donors Network Conference on International Giving, which focuses specifically on global giving, bringing together donors and practitioners to discuss how philanthropic strategies can address global issues such as alleviating global poverty, human rights, climate change, education, health, and economic development.

Recorded Friday, October 30, 2009 at The Standard Club.