G8 Must commit to the fight against HIV&Aids Now
Civil society leaders have urged G8 leaders at Heiligendamm, Germany, to make a financial commitment to increase HIV and Aids funding and save the lives of 6000 people who perish daily owing to the pandemic.
“The G8 must prove its promises were more than mere empty rhetoric and say when and how they will increase aid,” said Charles Abani, director of Oxfam in Southern Africa.
Abani was referring to the promises made at the Gleneagles summit of the G8 in 2005. Then, the leaders of the eight richest countries agreed to increase aid by $ 50 billion a year by 2010, with half of this amount earmarked for Africa. Two years later, the total is still stagnant at $ 21.4billon.
According to Oxfam, the G8 could miss its 2010 target by a whooping $30 billion if they do not move fast. The organization which advocates for the end of poverty also stated disappointed in Italy, which has shied away from financial commitment.
“Chancellor Merkel must lead the others today in announcing how they will meet their promises to increase aid,” Abani told journalists at a press conference held in Rostock on the second day of the summit.
Abani went on to say that delay in providing the funds would be a deplorable failure for millions of men and women who would have to pay with their lives. “These promises are not inconsequential numbers on a balance sheet but about life and death for real people, ” he said.
The Oxfam director also stressed that total official development assistance amounts to only $103 billon – a tenth of global military spending and less than what the world spends on bottled water.
Global Fund
HIV/Aids remains Africa’s biggest problem, causing at least 6000 deaths everyday.
The Global Fund, which finances program to stem AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, applauds the G8 for contributing 80% of its funds. According to the Fund, 3000 lives are thus saved everyday. Twice as many people, however, die of the disease. While $10.4 billion have been pledged to the Fund, only $3.5 billion have been disbursed.
Director of the Burundi AIDS program, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye told journalists that the G8 had saved her life, as their funding had made antiretroviral drugs available to her. The medical doctor applauded G8 effort, but insisted more could be done if the leaders were to meet their 2010 target.
Dr Ndayishimiye pointed out the successes of the G8 summit in Genoa 2001. She said that the number of people accessing antiretroviral treatment had risen from 600 in 2002 to 8000. However, 16 000 are still on the waiting list.
The Doctor who is HIV positive was optimistic that leaders many lives would be saved, if the G8 kept their aid promises of 2005. “We can reach and save many lives, my life and my husband’s life will be saved,” she pointed out.
Global Action against Poverty, a global alliance of trade unions, community groups and campaigners against poverty said their response to the G8’S failure to fulfill their promises was, “The people roared and the G8 whispered.”
The alliance representative Kumi Naidoo said the 6000 people that died of HIV/Aids everyday where equivalent of the vicitims of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were crushed.“Why is the response not the same?” He suggested the response might if different if the victims’ color was predominantly white.
Collin Magalasi, the head of Actionaid’s South Africa Country Program, said the G8’s failure to fulfill their promises to the poor was immoral. He said the leaders’ actions were not only defrauding the poor but their own public which they represent. Magalasi expressed his organisation’s displeasure at the slow pace the leaders were taking.
He went on to say that the leaders snail pace was frustrating the needs of the poor in Africa and that their actions had resulted in braindrain. “In Malawi for instance 71%of the trained doctors have all left the country while 414 trained nurses have all left for United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States.”
