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HEALTH: HIV/AIDS ‘Biggest Threat’ to Developing World

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, May 11 2004 (IPS) - HIV/AIDS is the greatest threat to development in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, European interest groups are warning.

More than 13.4 million children under the age of 15 have lost their mother, father or both parents to AIDS, according to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) CONCORD, an umbrella network of more than 2,000 European development agencies.

The human rights group says that 80 percent of these orphans live in sub- Saharan Africa. “If ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries are to avoid the very worst economic and developmental scenarios that HIV/AIDS might bring, then investment in the future of orphans and vulnerable children is essential now,” CONCORD said.

“It is a global problem threatening global development,” it said in a statement. “Since the emergence of the epidemic, 60 million people worldwide have been infected with HIV and 20 million have died of AIDS. Of the people infected, over 95 percent are from developing countries.”

Civil society groups highlighted the need to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic in a presentation at the 29th session of the ACP-EU council of ministers meeting in Gaberone, Botswana last weekend. The meeting identified children as “the most vulnerable” group.

The ACP-EU council of ministers is held once a year and brings together development ministers from EU member states and ministers from the 77 ACP countries.

“While growth rates of HIV cases are beginning to level off in many countries, the worst is yet to come regarding its impact on orphans and vulnerable children,” Guggi Laryea, co-author of the CONCORD presentation and EU liaison officer for Plan Europe, a children’s NGO and member of CONCORD told IPS Tuesday.

There is little appreciation of the magnitude of the problems related to orphans and children made vulnerable by the disease in many countries, CONCORD says, adding that “children’s lack of political influence and an audible voice” is one of the major hurdles in protecting their interests.

While the number of orphans and vulnerable children is increasing as a result of HIV/AIDS, CONCORD says “traditional local care systems are deteriorating” as a result of the crisis.

“Due to the weakening of safety nets, there is a risk that more and more children will end up on the street, or be recruited as child prostitutes or child soldiers, or will in other ways be exploited,” Marloes Vandersande of Plan Netherlands told delegates.

The European Union (EU) and ACP countries have signed up to a number of commitments to address the issue of HIV/AIDS and their wider impact on poverty.

These measures include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed in 2000 to halve world poverty and improve education and health by 2015. But a statement from a joint EU-ACP parliamentary assembly meeting in February on poverty-related diseases and reproductive health in ACP states held that the three MDGs related to reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating and preventing HIV/AIDS are the ones “least likely” to be achieved by the target year 2015.

“As things stand, if aid allocations to sectors that impact on health and HIV/ AIDS follow current trends, then MDGs regarding health and HIV/AIDS will not be attained,” said Laryea. “That is very clear from all analysis done on this issue.”

CONCORD and Plan Europe are urging EU and ACP states to “pay special attention” to women, children and elderly people when addressing poverty related diseases. They say governments should “fully integrate sexual and reproductive health and the prevention of infectious diseases in children into their development policies.”

The NGO says that the partners should finance and implement prevention campaigns to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic and should “emphasise the importance for adolescents and young men and women to have access to the education, services and supplies necessary to develop the life skills required to lead a satisfying and healthy sexual life.”

More specifically, CONCORD says that provisions should be made in the European Commission budget to support healthcare and legal support for children with HIV/AIDS.

It says the ACP-EU council needs to provide strong and accountable leadership to effectively address the issue of HIV/AIDS.

“As the decision making body of ACP-EU cooperation, the council needs to show strong and accountable leadership now in developing an effective action programme, in collaboration with civil society, to tackle this grave problem which could set back the achievement of sustainable development and poverty reduction in the ACP,” Laryea said.