Mattias Creffier
BRUSSELS, Nov 22 2006 (IPS) – Developing countries should pay their share to close the financing gap in the campaign against HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS director Peter Piot said Wednesday.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the other hand, should not impose policy options that inhibit poor countries from spending what it takes to combat HIV/AIDS, he said.
Piot was in Brussels on Wednesday to sign a structural agreement with Geert Bourgeois, development minister of the Belgian region Flanders. This autonomous region has earmarked three million euros (3.9 million dollars) for a four-year programme coordinated by UNAIDS, focussing on HIV/AIDS prevention among women and adolescent girls in Southern Africa.
In its 2006 HIV/AIDS epidemic update, the UN agency stated that by 2008 it needs 22.1 billion dollars by 2008 to ensure universal treatment with anti-retroviral therapy, a universal prevention effort and care for aids orphans. In 2005 UNAIDS had a budget of 8.3 billion dollars, two-thirds of which came from donors, and one-third from developing countries.
An additional effort is needed, Piot told IPS, but not all the money should come from the North. Latin America and Asia have sufficient means to pay their share. Only the poorest countries cannot do without support from the international community.
In this respect, the UNAIDS chief said it was a good decision for Flanders to invest one million euros (1.3 million dollars) in Malawi, the poorest of the six least developed countries in Southern Africa. Between 15 and 17 percent of Malawians live with HIV.
In Botswana, HIV prevalence is over 30 percent, Piot told IPS, but this is a middle income country. There is a risk that it slips back down the development scale, but diamond mining makes it financially more independent.
Malawi, on the other hand, ranks at the bottom of the Human Development Index. Forty percent of the national budget and 80 percent of the development budget is financed by donors. More than half of its population lives on less than a dollar a day. Life expectancy at birth was 40 years in 2003.
This project will help strengthen efforts Malawi is making to address the growing burden of HIV/AIDS on women and girls, Piot said. Deeply rooted gender equalities, women s limited economic opportunities and power as well as social norms place woman at an increased risk of HIV infection. Increasingly, HIV/AIDS in Malawi has a women s face. Girls aged 15-24 are four times more likely to be HIV positive compared to their male peers.
Giving Kenya and Uganda as examples, Piot criticised policy strategies imposed by the IMF or the World Bank that inhibit countries from spending what it takes to combat HIV/AIDS.
Uganda, having received a large grant from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, could not spend it at once because of an IMF-imposed Medium Term Expenditure Framework. In Kenya 4,000 nurses found themselves unemployed because the government followed instructions to reduce the number of public servants. These policy options are unacceptable, Piot told IPS.
The UNAIDS director does not expect an HIV/AIDS vaccine to become available in the near future. Saying that a vaccine against HIV/AIDS was first announced more than 20 years ago, he remains cautiously optimistic.
The good news is that large pharmaceutical companies are starting to finance clinical trials. The results will be known in maybe 10 years. Piot warned the press not to create any false expectations. Success will depend on a lot of money, and a bit of luck.