Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 19, 2010

Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa is a 2005 non-fiction book written by Stephen Lewis (pictured) for the Massey Lectures. Lewis was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. His criticism of the United Nations, international organizations, and other diplomats, including naming specific people, was called undiplomatic and led to speculations that he would be removed from his UN position. In the book and the lectures, Lewis argues that significant changes are required to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa by their 2015 deadline. He explains the historical context of Africa since the 1980s, citing a succession of disastrous economic policies by international financial institutions that contributed to, rather than reduced, poverty. He connects the structural adjustment loans, with conditions of limited public spending on health and education infrastructure, to the uncontrolled spread of AIDS and subsequent food shortages. To help alleviate problems, he ends with potential solutions which mainly require increased funding by G8 countries to levels beyond what they promise. Book reviewers found the criticisms constructive and the writing sincere. His style focuses less on numbers and statistics, and more on connecting decisions by UN officials and western diplomats to consequences on the ground in Africa. (more...)

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