| Media Note Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC October 9, 2003 Appointment of John E. Lange as a Deputy Coordinator in the Office of the Global AIDS CoordinatorFormer U.S. Ambassador to Botswana John E. Lange has been named as a Deputy Coordinator in the new Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator at the Department of State. He will report directly to Ambassador Randall L. Tobias, who was sworn in on October 6, 2003, as the Coordinator of United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally. Dr. Joseph F. O’Neill also serves as a Deputy Coordinator and as Chief Medical Officer in the office.
The Global AIDS Coordinator oversees all U.S. international HIV/AIDS assistance and coordinates the efforts of the various agencies and departments that deliver it. President George W. Bush announced on January 28, 2003, the historic $15 billion, five-year plan that is expected to deploy over $2 billion in the first year and steadily increase expenditures over the next four years. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief includes specific goals aimed at preventing seven million new HIV infections, treating two million HIV-infected people and caring for ten million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS orphans. As the United States continues to work to combat HIV/AIDS globally, the plan will focus a significant amount of resources on 14 of the most afflicted countries in Africa and the Caribbean that account for nearly 20 million HIV-infected men, women and children—almost 70 percent of the total in all of Africa and the Caribbean. John E. Lange, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, has a broad range of experience dealing with HIV/AIDS and other humanitarian and foreign policy issues in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Lange’s Africa experience includes assignments to U.S. Embassies in West Africa (Togo), East Africa (Tanzania), and Southern Africa (Botswana).
Lange’s most recent assignment was at the Foreign Service Institute, where he was Associate Dean for the State Department’s Senior Seminar executive leadership program. From 1999-2002, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Botswana and as Special Representative of the Secretary of State to the Southern African Development Community. Secretary of State Colin Powell lauded his leadership in bringing together seven U.S. Government agencies, the Government of Botswana, the media and international and local partners to create new avenues of cooperation on HIV/AIDS, and the Department of State recommended that all U.S. Embassies consider developing interagency AIDS programs based on the Gaborone model of “The Partnership.” Lange served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam from 1997 to 1999 and headed the Embassy as Charge d' Affaires from January to September 1998. He received the Distinguished Honor Award of the Department of State for "skilled leadership" and "extraordinary courage" in the aftermath of the devastating terrorist bombing of the Embassy on August 7, 1998.
While at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Lange managed U.S. Government assistance to international organizations for African and Caribbean refugee and humanitarian crises. He also worked in the Africa Bureau and the Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau of the State Department as well as in the American Embassies in Mexico City and Paris. He is a "distinguished graduate" of the National War College and a graduate cum laude of the University of Wisconsin Law School. He speaks French and Spanish.
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