By Winnie Byanyima Winnie Byanyima is the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. A grass-roots activist, human rights advocate, and world-recognized expert on women’s rights, she began her career as an engineer in her native Uganda. Appointed to the diplomatic service in 1989, she represented Uganda in France and at UNESCO. She was a member of parliament for 10 years in Uganda, and thereafter served at the African Union Commission. She was UNDP’s director of gender and development between 2006 and 2013.

As an African woman, the memories of AIDS are etched on me: of family members taken too soon, leaving us bereaved and broken; of countries’ development plans thrown off course; and of fearing that this threat might be impossible to defeat.

But I have other memories that bring me strength — mostly, of how people started to fight back, often at huge personal risk. Their bravery changed everything, and we were able to mobilize science, international resources, innovation, and partnerships to start making progress against the epidemic. And the progress made against the epidemic is a miracle — not handed from above, but brought about by communities working together.

But we must be cleareyed. The job is not done, and the last mile is the hardest. It is time to reach for the high-hanging fruit. Without doing so, AIDS will remain undefeated, the Sustainable Development Goals will be at risk, and millions of people will be left behind.

To end AIDS, we need a new era of leadership — serious, courageous, just — in the following areas…