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G8-AFRICA: Shortfall on Help in AIDS Fight 'Devastating'
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Jun 10, 2007 (IPS) - Although the Group of Eight industrialised nations agreed at their summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, to allocate 60 billion dollars to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa, health activists say the treatment targets are much lower than originally pledged, which is "devastating news", especially for the millions of people with HIV/AIDS.
In a joint declaration on "growth and responsibility" in Africa, the G8 - Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States - also invited other donors to join the initiative, proposed by the United States, which pledged 30 billion dollars of the total.
"We will continue our efforts towards these goals (fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis on a sustainable basis) to provide at least a projected 60 billion dollars over the coming years, and invite other donors to contribute as well," the declaration said.
G8 leaders expressed the intention to "continue to work in partnership with Africa, and welcome the critical role of African leadership in the reform process," the declaration reads.
Aid organisations were quick to point out that the declaration failed to set a definite timetable or specify the contributions of individual countries, and did not clarify how much of the sum had been previously pledged.
According to G8 summit documents, Africa is the world region most affected by infectious diseases. About 63 percent of all the people in the world infected with HIV live in Africa. Every year, malaria kills nearly one million people globally. Around 90 percent of the deaths occur in Africa, mostly young children. Tuberculosis also kills some 5,000 people every day, mainly young adults in their most productive years.
"The G8 summit declaration contains very few specific timelines and targets. And on universal access, officials haggled over the number of HIV positive people to treat and set a target much lower than the promised universal access. This is devastating news for the 40 million HIV-positive people around the world," Aditi Sharma, head of the HIV/AIDS campaign for the development organisation ActionAid, told IPS from London.
The 60 billion dollars announced by the G8 is to fight AIDS, TB, malaria and build up health systems - all extremely critical needs in Africa and other developing countries, Sharma said, adding that "providing treatment is not just a human rights issue but an economic one as workers can continue to contribute to the economy."
However there is no new money on the table, just recycled promises. There is no timeframe to this commitment and the amount is paltry when compared to the real need in the fight against AIDS, which requires around 23 billion dollars annually, with an additional 27 billion dollars to invest in health systems, according to ActionAid's estimates.
According to the organisation, an estimated 24,000 people died of AIDS over the three days that G8 leaders were wrangling over text on how many lives to save. And even a 60-billion-dollar smokescreen can't cover up for the failure of the G8 to move forward on their HIV/AIDS promises.
In 2005, at the summit in Gleaneagles, Scotland, the G8 promised an extra 50 billion dollars in aid, half of this to Africa, but in 2006 they were eight billion dollars short. By far the biggest betrayal of Heiligendamm summit is the erosion of the 2010 universal access goal on HIV/AIDS drugs agreed only two years ago.
"We need more aid and more effective aid that reaches the most vulnerable. Civil society in Africa and other parts of the world are mobilising to hold their own governments to account on delivery of basic health services and AIDS programmes, and governments in developing countries are coming up with full cost and comprehensive national AIDS plans to move towards the goal of universal access to HIV treatment, prevention and care," Sharma said.
While more needs to be done to ensure that funds and programmes reach those most in need, aid does work, maintains Sharma, and urged the world's richest countries to play their part in the war against the pandemic by backing up their words with hard cash and high political urgency to prevent 8,000 needless deaths every day.
Consistency in tackling the disease is also essential, say experts.
"Many studies have shown that the AIDS epidemic in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa will dramatically decrease economic productivity and contribute to the continuing impoverishment of these areas. It will also produce enormous hardships on families, neighbourhoods, and larger social organisations by killing large numbers of family members," Robert Heimer, a scientific researcher at the Yale School of Medicine's department of epidemiology and public health, told IPS.
"That is why more efforts by the wealthier parts of the international community are necessary and commendable, but at the same time there are many impediments to getting relief funds properly directed," he said.
The AIDS epidemic itself is contributing to the difficulty by killing or disabling many of the people who normally might be called upon to help provide the relief, Africans themselves, says Heimer. "In the social turmoil created by mass deaths due to HIV/AIDS, there may be tendencies to focus too extensively on short-term gain and as a result increase one's willingness to misuse relief funds."
But it is nonetheless vital that the G8 makes the effort, he said.
Heimer said G8 countries are at fault for two reasons: first, most have not been as generous as they initially proposed, giving less than promised; and second, the most generous nation so far - both in terms of amount committed and keeping to that commitment - the United States, has promoted HIV prevention strategies, such as sexual abstinence, that are overly influenced by religious ideology and therefore less likely than evidence-based approaches to have an impact on the epidemic.
The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS remains so pandemic that it has been seriously affecting viable development on the African continent and those affected most are the younger generation, which, in effect, constitutes the active labour force, James Achanyi-Fontem, with Cameroon Link Human Assistance, a non-governmental organisation, told IPS from Douala, Cameroon.
He says while the declaration at this year's G8 was very commendable, the same G8 leaders should unreservedly encourage African leaders to open up to democracy and freedom of expression by promoting awareness and education about HIV/AIDS prevention in local languages, accessible to the population.
"They (G8 leaders) should forge cooperation with non-profitable organisations in tackling important health issues on our continent, redirect expenditure on arms into health care delivery. Interestingly arms are not manufactured in Africa, but the continent has become militarised with arms and weaponry from abroad," said Achanyi-Fontem.
"But the funds are not reaching its destinations as some African governments use HIV/AIDS money to consolidate power, while a majority of Africans believe that difficult situations facing them are provoked by external enemies. Some dream that their problems can find solutions only in rituals and prayers" or the like, he said.
Political leadership is also to blame. He called on the G8 to hold the African recipient countries to account. "Obviously, the money given by the G8 goes to the bank accounts of these leaders and unfortunately, these accounts are in Europe or western countries and none in Africa," Achanyi-Fontem maintained.
He suggested that the G8 impose a regimen of "good governance" in exchange for aid, "and the population will benefit more from the donations directed towards HIV/AIDS prevention."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the host of the summit, said the problems of the African continent would be addressed more consistently. "We must address all these problems clearly and in close cooperation with African governments," she said.
Russia was initially caught by surprise by the new U.S. proposal for 30 billion dollars, announced by President George W. Bush on the eve of last week's summit at the German Baltic seaside resort. But Moscow subsequently reaffirmed its support for the initiative.
President Bush, who missed one summit session with African leaders and another with leaders from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, (non-G8 members) said he would press Congress to double the current U.S. commitment for combating AIDS in Africa to 30 billion dollars over the next five years.
(END)
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