World Bank announces new head for its HIV/AIDS program

"The World Bank on Thursday named David Wilson, a Zimbabwean national who has written extensively about AIDS in the developing world, to head the poverty-fighting institution's global HIV/AIDS program," Reuters reports. With funding going increasingly through organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "the World Bank has slowly shifted its focus from financing HIV/AIDS projects to advising countries on how best to manage AIDS funding and improve HIV prevention programs" (Wroughton, 7/8).

According to a World Bank statement announcing his appointment, which is effective immediately, Wilson will be responsible for four areas of the bank's strategy: promoting HIV prevention strategies, helping countries integrate AIDS treatment into public health systems, "harnessing the Bank's leading expertise … to develop safety nets for those most impacted by the disease" and "leading economic analysis to help countries improve the effectiveness and sustainability" of their AIDS strategies. "With better evidence we can make prevention services succeed and make AIDS treatment more sustainable," Wilson said (7/8).