McKinsey link to plan to cut UNAids funds

THE international Aids conference opened in Amsterdam last night amid a funding crisis for the epidemic, and a concern that the Joint United Nations Agency on HIV and Aids (UNAids) is on the brink of being closed.

UNAids executive director Michel Sidibe was accused last night of discussing plans with McKinsey, a management consultant group, to slash UNAids staff by 40% and reformulate the agency as part of a global public health unit.

Someone with access to email correspondence about this leaked it to Paula Donovan, co-director of Aids-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign, which advocates for an end to impunity for sexual abuse by UN personnel.

Sidibe has been under massive pressure to resign for his mishandling of sexual assault by his former deputy, Luiz Loures, and delegates were expected to protest against him.

The emails are purportedly between Sidibe, two senior UN officials and McKinsey, in which McKinsey provides Sidibe with advice on how to deal with damage control around the sexual assault and discusses his plans to dismantle UNAids.

The officials are UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed and under-secretary for management Jan Beagle, currently head of the UN’s sexual harassment task force. Both are known to be close to Sidibe.

“The plan: slash 40% of UNAids staff, shovel the remainder into a newly designed ‘global public health’ unit somewhere within the UN, and – the cherry on top for wealthy, fatigued donor governments – end the Aids exceptionalism that UNAids has championed vocally for over a decade,” wrote Donovan in an article released last night.

“The scheme has Sidibe heading up the ‘transition’ with the aid of an external management consulting firm. McKinsey seems the obvious candidate,” added Donovan.

Donovan told Health-e that while she had not seen the emails, the information was from a credible source and it was impossible to verify the information independently as the UN had immunity from scrutiny according to its Convention on Privileges and Immunities.

However, UNAids spokesperson Sophie Barton-Knott said: “There have been no consultations with McKinsey on closure of UNAids.

“UNAids is firmly focused on working with countries and civil society towards the targets agreed to by UN member states at the 2016 UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Aids.”

McKinsey is infamous for its role in the looting at Eskom, and has offered to return about R1 billion it earned in consulting fees from Eskom.