Remarks by Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger at the Corporate Launch of the Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation

December 5, 2008

Honored guests.

 The partnership between the peoples and governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Kenya is among the richest in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Both of our nations benefit from deep ties that reflect common economic, democratic, and humanitarian interests.  And I have every expectation that those ties will continue to be strengthened on all levels in the years to come.

Today, therefore, we take the opportunity to celebrate an expansion and enrichment of that partnership that is focused entirely on the future: the launch of the Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation. 

The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - or PEPFAR as it is known - became operational in Kenya in early 2004 and, since that time, we have brought one-point-three million U.S. dollars - over one hundred billion Kenyan shillings - to bear in our joint effort to confront the devastating impact of AIDS on individuals, families, communities, and the nation as a whole.

Much of what we have done to date has been focused on responding to profound and even life-threatening pre-existing or present needs:

Providing care for over half a million children orphaned by AIDS;

• Helping millions of pregnant women learn their HIV status and then deliver uninfected babies;
• Putting hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, who would otherwise have died, on life-prolonging treatment with anti-retroviral drugs, and
• Testing millions of Kenyan men and women for HIV and helping them stay negative if they are uninfected or stay healthy if they are HIV-positive.

Today we turn our attention to the most urgent need still unmet: saving the next generation from infection and all of its consequences.

PEPFAR is huge, and our current partners are committed and talented, but all available evidence makes it clear that we have so far failed to either get prevention right or take it to the scale where it makes a lasting generational and societal difference.

We must now mobilize every tool at our disposal to finally achieve prevention programs that touch young people at every point on the road to adulthood and reach them with messages and support that transmit skills and hope for an HIV-free future.  The Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation brings us new partners - and through them, dynamic and innovative tools that have never before been applied to this important work.

This corporate launch introduces and applauds the initial group of new partners - a well-known but diverse combination of private sector giants such as Coca-Cola and Intel, Dell and Draper Richards, Warner Bros. and Nike.  But it also serves to send forth word that we need to mobilize many other elements of the private sector - including civic-minded groups who have already joined us like Rotary and Junior Achievement, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts - to bring their energies and expertise to bear on the noble project of giving Kenyan young people a healthier, more productive, and hope-filled future.

Today we are also launching the Kenya pilot that links these and many other partners to a program that we believe will save countless lives.  Over 95% of young Kenyans are not infected with HIV and we intend to help make sure they stay that way by supporting them to plan for a future free from HIV.  We are starting here in Mukuru, but the program will rapidly grow to national scale and then beyond your borders to other nations. This pilot and this event would not be possible without the unwavering support of companies and groups with deep roots in Kenyan soil, including Micato Safaris and its charitable arm AmericaShare, Hope Worldwide Kenya, and St. Mary's Parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

We are taking a bold step to expand prevention information and action by linking all of our existing partners in this work with the core competencies of private enterprise.  Too much of what we have done thus far to protect young Kenyans has been disconnected, of insufficient scale, or didn't have staying power.  The Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation seeks to address all of these challenges by linking and scaling-up cutting-edge services and new technologies that will meet young Kenyans wherever they are - and wherever they want to be - with information, services, and support for healthier lives.

Those young Kenyans have told us clearly what they need.  And it isn't a finger-wagging, "Just Say No" approach to life. They need and want information, options, and a sense of hope for a meaningful future that will allow them to start and support families and contribute to the development of their nation at the same time that they protect their own health and the health of others.

The wonderful additional and strategic capacities of partners aligned with HIV-Free will allow Kenya's young people to say a resounding, "Yes, We Can!"

I thank each of you here today for your commitment to contribute those capabilities to this great new venture.  On behalf of these new partners, I am pleased to invite Debra Baker of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to speak to you on behalf of the HIV-Free Global Executive Steering Committee.

Asanteni sana.