In her plenary address at the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, Cindy Kelemi, executive director of the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law, and HIV/AIDS, called attention to missing political leadership in the HIV response.
“In our beloved Africa, there are many countries with anti-LGBTI policies and laws,” she told the audience in Kigali, Rwanda. “We need political leadership to remove political and structural barriers.”
The very next day, ICASA officials announced that Uganda — a country that has recently renewed a crackdown on its LGBT community — would host its 2021 conference, the largest gathering related to HIV/AIDS on Africa’s calendar.