Baxter leaving AFAO

After almost a decade at the helm of Australia’s peak HIV member organisation — the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) — executive director Don Baxter will stand down in May.

Baxter told the Star Observer he is looking forward to a break, but will continue his HIV advocacy work internationally with men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) in his role as Global Forum on MSM and HIV co-chair and on the board of the International Council of AIDS Service Organisations.

“I went to work in 1983 in HIV because I saw it as really threatening the gay communities which I’d spend the previous 10 years trying to help build, and at that time it looked like it might destroy it,” Baxter said.

“I suppose I feel that’s one of the reasons I can leave … now the epidemiology demonstrates, while some of the risky behaviour continues, HIV rates — now that Victoria has re-invested in the program in particular — are largely stabilised nationally.

“What we should be doing is driving them down, but I guess that’s the task I’m leaving to my successor.”

Baxter said he believes AFAO is well-placed to head into 2011.

“I think it’s the right time to go. Ten years is as long as I think any CEO should stay in any organisation,” he said.

“AFAO’s very strong at the moment. It’s got a good board, good staff, the national policy settings with the recent national strategies I think are a big improvement on the previous one and we’ve got a very activist and well chosen national advisory committee.

“I think it’s a good time for someone with fresh ideas, fresh energy to make a lot of headway.”

Baxter — who came to the role after heading up ACON for six years in the 1990s and as a director of arts funding for the Australian Council for the Arts – said although Australia has maintained a fairly solid investment in HIV prevention, there’s still a way to go.

“It has got harder [to secure funding], and we’re in a particularly difficult time now with both major national parties testing to move back to surplus by 2012,” he said.

“Particularly when new programs are added into the funding basket, so most recently we’ve had the hepatitis B [and C] strategy added into the national strategy … but we haven’t increased the funding bucket at the Commonwealth level much at all.

“I think we are coming to a crunch point where we can see some fraying because there’s just not enough money.”

Baxter said he would now like to throw his energy into international communities still struggling with the social and health implications of HIV in MSM.

“When I look now in at the countries of the global south and developing countries, it’s almost an uncanny parallel, many of these societies are just building gay communities that will allow lesbians and gay men in these countries to lead their lives much more openly.

“But HIV is moving right in the male communities of course and really dramatically in the major cities of Asia, but also the major cities of African countries.

“It’s a big challenge, but it’s an area I look forward to working in.”