It is a very great honor for me to accept this award and I humbly thank you for the opportunity. I would like to stress, first and foremost, that the award really goes to the countless individuals who have worked consistently to provide family planning, health care, and community development services to rural areas. Their important contributions have brought about much of the positive change that we see around us, and I laud their efforts.

Today the struggle for equality and a better life continues, beset by a pandemic that has further divided our societies. That pandemic is AIDS and it threatens to condemn several countries in our region to another generation of grinding poverty. Currently, half of the population infected with HIV are aged between fifteen and twenty-four. The problem is compounded by the fact that many people in Asia, as well as some governments, are still denying the gravity of the situation and the potential impact of the HIV virus. As governments delay in responding constructively and fairly to the AIDS crisis, our societies as a whole also fail to address the problem with compassion at a time when it is most needed.

This inability to respond to the pandemic in an effective, decent manner indicates much deeper social issues at play, those of inequality, injustice, and indifference. AIDS has the potential to further divide us and we all bear responsibility for ensuring that does not happen. We must not, as a society, discriminate. Rather, we must commit ourselves to dealing with the HIV virus with the genuine understanding and humanity demanded by the situation.