Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic – June 2000and economic opportunities of young girls in rural areas not only reduces HIV transmissionby providing alternatives to commercial sex, but also contributes to sustainablerural development and an improvement in the status of women.Redirecting to AIDS existing project resources already programmed for social funds,education and health projects, infrastructure and rural development is fully justified,as the AIDS epidemic is undermining the very goals of these other investments.Even though international financial assistance is not always necessary, internationalassistance is crucial in many poor countries with limited public budgets.Box 22. Debt reliefSome 95% of HIV-infected people live in developing countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. And of the 39 so-called heavily indebted poor countries identified bythe World Bank, 32 are in Africa. Together they owe more than US$ 2.2 trillion indebt.Lack of funds for an expanded response to AIDS has been worsened by these highlevels of foreign indebtedness. Across Africa, national governments pay out fourtimes more in debt service than they spend on health and education.In order to mount effective national AIDS prevention programmes, countries in Africa willneed to spend at least US$ 1–2 billion a year, far more than is currently being invested.Sources that might be tapped for these additional resources include increased donationsfrom the private sector and foundations, expansion and redirection of developmentassistance, and reallocations within countries’ own public budgets.Relieving countries’ debt burden is one of the more promising new approaches thatcould increase the funds flowing into programmes to roll back the AIDS epidemic inAfrica. By relieving debt in the poorest countries – which, often, are the ones with thehighest HIV and AIDS figures – money now exported to service debt could be reinvestedinto AIDS prevention and care.A major initiative to reduce debt over the next few years will take place under theHighly Indebted Poor Country initiative (HIPC), supported by all the major creditorgovernments from the OECD countries and implemented by the World Bank andInternational Monetary Fund.In a typical debt relief agreement, portions of a country’s debt will be cancelled inexchange for the debtor government’s commitment to mobilize domestic resourcesfor specific purposes, such as a poverty eradication scheme or an intensified nationalAIDS effort.Such transactions have succeeded since the 1980s in the field of environmental conservation,for instance, by protecting rainforests from logging.–––>114