Stephen Lewis

The former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Mr. Stephen Lewis is the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.  He is also a Senior Advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.

Mr. Lewis is co-chair of the Leadership Programme Committee for the XVII International AIDS Conference, which will be held in Mexico City in August 2008.  Mr. Lewis also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), and is the chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation (www.stephenlewisfoundation.org).  

Stephen Lewis’ work with the United Nations spans more than two decades.  He was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from June 2001 until the end of 2006.   From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Lewis was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF at the organization’s global headquarters in New York. 

In 1997, in addition to his work at UNICEF, Mr. Lewis was appointed by the Organization of African Unity to a Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda. The ‘Rwanda Report’ was issued in June of 2000.

In 1993, Mr. Lewis became coordinator for the international study -- known as the Graça Machel study -- on the "Consequences of Armed Conflict on Children". The report was tabled in the United Nations in 1996.

From 1984 through 1988, Stephen Lewis was Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. In this capacity, he chaired the Committee that drafted the Five-Year UN Programme on African Economic Recovery.  He also chaired the first International Conference on Climate Change, which drew up the first comprehensive policy on global warming.

From 1970-1978, Mr. Lewis was leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, during which time he became leader of the Official Opposition.

Mr. Lewis holds 24 honorary degrees from Canadian universities.  He is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and is a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Lewis was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement, in 2003.   The same year, Maclean’s magazine honoured Mr. Lewis as their inaugural “Canadian of the Year.”   In April 2005, TIME magazine listed Stephen Lewis as one of the ‘100 most influential people in the world’.

During the course of his tenure as Special Envoy, Mr. Lewis received a number of prestigious awards.  Amongst them are the Jonathan Mann Health and Human Rights Award from the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (2003); the Pearson Peace Medal, awarded by the United Nations Association in Canada to celebrate outstanding achievement in the field of international service and understanding (2004);  the International Council of Nurses’ Health and Human Rights Award, awarded quadrennially for outstanding contributions to international health and human rights (2005); the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Leadership Award, from the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas (2006); the Harry Jerome President’s Award from the Black Business and Professional Association in Toronto (2006); and the William G. Davis Children’s Champion Award, Peel Children’s Aid Foundation, Mississauga (2006).

Stephen Lewis’ best-selling book, Race Against Time was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Award and the Trillium Book Award. It won the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Award for non-fiction book of the year, and Mr. Lewis was named the CBA’s Author of the Year for 2005.

Back to Conference Program