Book Launch: "Aids and Power" by Alex deWaal

Book Launch: "Aids and Power: Why there is no political crisis - yet" by Alex de Waal

05 February, 2007

5.30 - 7.00pm

SOAS, Russell Square

HIV/AIDS, Africa's greatest human tragedy for over a century, is an immense challenge to democrats and activists. Can governments survive an epidemic that has cut life expectancy in half, further burdened fragile economies,and created millions of orphans? Why, twenty years into the crisis, are democratic governments performing so poorly in tackling the disease? AIDS and Power argues that existing approaches to the epidemic are driven by interests and frameworks that fail to engage with African resilience andcreativity. Already, African communities have confounded some of the worst predictions of disaster, and if adequately supported, can find ways of sustaining development and democracy in the midst of HIV/AIDS.

Alex de Waal is a well known writer, researcher and activist on African issues. He is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, as well as program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York City. He is also a co-director of Justice Africa, London. He wrote extensively on East Africa and last year Zed Books published his and Julie Flint's Darfur: a short history of a long war.