The World Needs an AIDS Vaccine Finance Workshop

I spent a few days in Johannesberg South Africa recently when I attended a finance workshop for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). IAVI is one of the major funding agencies that we work with. The organization recently received $100 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of the development/delivery of a preventive vaccine. With that money (as well as funds from USAID, EU) comes extensive rules and regulations for spending it. In total there were about 40 of us there...from places like Kenya, Uganda, India, Peoria. We got IAVI tote bags that read "IAVI - The World Needs an AIDS Vaccine Finance Workshop". I thought it sounded funny. No one else did.

Johannesberg feels like any big city, really. Perhaps more European than American. Uniquely, it's the only major city in the world that doesn't lay claim to a significant body of water (river or ocean). -Remember that the next time you're at trivia night. I stayed in a rediculously nice hotel in the Sandton part of town. I didn't have to leave the place at all. It connected directly to the conference center as well as a shopping mall. Michelle got some gifts and I got some new shoes.

This gigantic statue of Nelson Mandela was probably the highlight of the trip.

I ate (and got my face painted) at an authentic south african restaurant. My boss wore a sweet headdress.


Johannesberg from the Sandton Hotel.