Fashion designer Kenneth Cole—well known for his AIDS activism—was named a UNAIDS international goodwill ambassador, reports The Associated Press.

Michel Sidibé, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), made the appointment on the eve of a U.N. High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS.

Cole is no stranger to AIDS advocacy. He is the chairman of the board for amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and in the 1980s, he spearheaded a series of public awareness campaigns featuring supermodels photographed by Annie Liebovitz.

At a news conference at the United Nations, Cole told reports that a cure is within our reach and that “AIDS can be ended as a public health crisis if the resources are available.”

For more about the U.N. meeting, read the POZ news item “Protests as U.N. Adopts Declaration on Ending AIDS” and the opinion piece “Exclusion Still Kills: Key Populations Left Out at U.N.”

For more about Cole’s AIDS activism, read the POZ cover story from June 2009, “The King of AIDS Awearness.”