GENEVA – The head of the U.N. agency for HIV and AIDS is stepping down in June, six months before his term ends, after an independent panel said that his “defective leadership” tolerated “a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power”. Michel Sidibe announced the decision yesterday at the end of a three-day board meeting of UNAIDS that examined the panel’s report, the agency said in a statement.

The four-member panel, in a 70-page report issued last Friday, said that a “patriarchal culture of favouritism and cronyism” had allowed “impunity and retaliation”. Sidibe, a Malian national, has been executive director since 2009 of the Geneva-based agency which has some 670 staff worldwide. “He informed the UNAIDS Board that its meeting in June 2019 would be his last Board meeting and he would complete his duties at the end of June 2019,” said a UNAIDS statement on Thursday night. Sidibe was quoted as saying in the UNAID statement: “I look forward to an inclusive, transparent and open dialogue and collaboration with staff in shaping a new UNAIDS.”(Reuters)…[+]