World leaders received harsh criticism from AIDS activist groups for having shied away from setting a definite fiscal plan regarding the AIDS epidemic. The conference’s objective was to review the ongoing effort to combat AIDS and to ready national planning to battle AIDS over the next decade. This conference was called after a U.N. report announced that 40 million people worldwide are living with AIDS or HIV, with 8,000 dying daily.

Activists claimed wealthy nations like the U.S., Australia and Japan are resistant to paying the monetary cost of AIDS. There has also been disappointment from various groups and delegations that those groups which suffer most from AIDS, like gay men and IV drug users, failed to receive proper attention. Because of pressure from conservative Islamic and Roman Catholic countries, the conference was conducted using unspecific language like ‘vulnerable groups.’ Britain’s Development Secretary Hilary Benn said “abstinence is fine for those who are able to abstain, but…human being[s] like to have sex and they should not die because they do have sex.”

Although the spread of the virus has slowed, delegates have admitted that the battle against AIDS is currently insufficient as more women are increasingly contracting the virus and only a small percentage of people who need AIDS medication are getting them. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said “there were more new infections then ever before, and more people died then ever before.” Diplomats who oversaw the conference stated that the meeting was not meant to arrive at a definite plan, but to help nations come up with their own strategies to international treatment of AIDS by the year 2010.

The conference has been praised by U.N. officials and certain rights groups for what they are calling recognition of the fact that the AIDS epidemic will cause $23 billion a year by 2010, as well as pushing for clean needles for IV users.

Leading donor nations such as the U.S and Japan were resistant to setting definite funding goals fearing they would be stuck with the heaviest financial burden. They agreed to promise to a set “ambitious national targets” in 2006 in order to foster international prevention and treatment. Over $8 billion was spent worldwide this year. However, this statement is not binding and 60 groups have spoken out against the declaration as a “missed opportunity.”