Collaboration's no drag

I'm just back from a twenty-four hour trip to London to catch up with friends I have worked and campaigned with in recent years, particularly through the Stop AIDS Campaign and during my time at Oxfam. I am a firm believer in the value of civil society organisations working in partnership, and it does have the added social benefit of introducing you to some great like-minded people.

In international development there are certain issues that cut across everything so that you have to deal with them if you are going to stand any chance of facilitating development. AIDS is one of those issues and every international NGO knows it, so they work together under the common branding of the Stop AIDS Campaign. Between 2005 and 2008 I was actively involved in developing Stop AIDS Campaign strategy and organising public actions and lobby events in a team of great people from organisations like Unicef UK, World Vision, ActionAid, VSO and Oxfam. It was great to catch up with some of them last night and share a jug of something green on the terrace of a London pub.

Incidentally the Stop AIDS Campaign are calling for an international patent pool to reduce the cost of anti-HIV drugs that are vital in tackling the AIDS pandemic. To me it's an obvious solution that we can all support: pharmaceutical companies who usually charge a fortune for their drugs voluntarily pool the drug patents (effectively the right to manufacture the pill) in one place, receiving in return a fair sum. But political will is needed to get the patent pool set up and working. If you'd like to find out more about it and take action to help, please visit www.stopaidscampaign.org.uk