This is a compilation of Idasa's staff news diaries while at the conference are Governance and AIDS Programme (GAP) director Kondwani Chirambo, manager Marietjie Oelofsen, unit heads Phoebe Machere, Vailet Kowayi, Jaqueline Nzisabira, and programme administrator, Jennifer
Dreyer.

See below for more information - Diary from Vienna.

Vailet Mukotsanjera-Kowayi wishes she could be in more than one place at a time, there's so much going on at the AIDS conference in Vienna. Read her diary entry here.

Phoebe Machere says health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi was greeted in Vienna in good SA style with vuvuzelas, but soon brought listeners down to earth with shocking fact that 5.7 million South Africans are HIV-positive. Read her Wednesday diary entry from the AIDS conference here.

Jennifer Dreyer writes from the AIDS Conference in Vienna of how moved she was by the voices of young people telling their stories of sexuality and HIV. Read her Tuesday diary entry here.

Jacqueline Nzisabira from Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme, writing from the AIDS conference in Vienna, was concerned at the conference’s emphasis on the medical aspects of HIV, since in a country like South Africa, HIV/AIDS is a very complex epidemic, which is very much as socio-cultural, political and economic an issue as it is a health one. She tells how she is being reminded at this international event that maybe it is time for Africans to start focus on finding African answers to an African epidemic! Read her Monday diary entry here

Marietjie Oelofsen and the rest of Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme team made sure their presence at the international conference in Vienna was made know by defying security staff and plastering posters and invitations to their satellite session everywhere - even the public telephone booth and the ATM machine did not escape their promotional zeal. And their efforts paid off. At least 60 delegates turned up to hear Kondwani provide an overview of GAP’s evidence of the impact of HIV and AIDS on leadership; Phoebe introduced the tool we are developing to address the leadership challenges as they emerged from our research; Vailet spoke about HIV and AIDS budgets in the light of the economic recession and Jackie presented the current research on HIV and AIDS exclusion that has been initiated in Mali, Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. Read Marietjie’s Sunday diary entry here.