Abuja, Nigeria, 5 Dec.: One week before finance and trade ministers gather in Hong Kong for pivotal World Trade Organization talks, an international conference on Africas HIV/AIDS pandemic is pressing governments to honour commitments and examining how new intellectual property policies and trade arrangements can help ensure access to life-saving drugs for nearly 26 million Africans infected with HIV.
The 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (ICASA) got underway here Monday and will end on 9 December.
It follows the 2005 World Summit, where international leaders reviewed progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, including halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, and reaffirmed their pledge to intensify global and national HIV/AIDS responses.
ICASA has attracted some 5.000 scientists, policy-makers, business and political leaders, people living with HIV and AIDS, representatives of affected communities and journalists from across Africa and around the world. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is one of several agencies organizing events during the conference.
Peter Igho, Executive Director of Programmes at the Nigeria Television Authority and a representative of the newly established African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS, will chair a UNDP forum on how leadership can spark action. The panel discussion will highlight the success of UNDPs Leadership for Development programme in Botswana, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Senegal.
“WTO-TRIPS: Flexibilities and Access to ARVs: A Reality or a Pipe Dream for Africa” is the theme of a workshop to be chaired by South African womens rights activist Winnie Mandikizela Mandela.
Participants will explore the impact of recent international developments in trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and public health and how new provisions can reduce the prices of anti-retroviral drugs in Africa.
These discussions come as the international community prepares for the Sixth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference which aims to advance the Doha Development Agenda, on 13-18 December in Hong Kong.
UNDP is also organizing two ICASA skills-building sessions to boost the knowledge of conference delegates.
One will teach participants about efforts to mainstream HIV/AIDS into local and district government programmes and how to deliver more comprehensive responses to the epidemic. It will feature the mayors of Nyeri, Kenya; Ezulwini, Swaziland and Ndola, Zambia – all members of the Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders Initiative for Community Action on AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL).
The other session will highlight strategies for promoting community dialogues about HIV/AIDS.
BACKGROUND:
In recognition of hard-fought advances in regional integration and coordination, peace-building and democratic governance in Africa, the international community in 2005 has demonstrated willingness to increase assistance to the continent. But the spread of HIV/AIDS – which is accelerating in many African countries – continues to threaten these gains.
General life expectancy has fallen dramatically as HIV/AIDS incidence rates are now as high as one in five in some sub-Saharan African countries. HIV/AIDS is disabling and killing off many of the most productive members of African societies: the young, the educated, farmers, professionals, entrepreneurs, experienced civil servants, teachers and parents.
The epidemic is contributing to food shortages in areas where it has claimed the lives of thousands of farmers. In 2004, AIDS killed 2,3 million Africans, while some 3,1 million people in the region became newly infected.
In Southern Africa, where nine countries with only 2 percent of the worlds population account for some 30 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS globally, a UNDP programme is helping assure the continued availability of essential skills.
The Southern Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI) is assisting countries in the design and implementation of actions and strategies to meet the HIV/AIDs challenge. As part of the initiative, UNDP is working with the Government of Malawi to develop and implement a comprehensive leadership capacity building programme that responds to the expressed need for leadership, ownership and accountability in public service.
In Zambia, UNDP has deployed dozens of national UN Volunteers across the country to strengthen capacities of institutions to intensify the response to HIV/AIDS.
Throughout Africa, UNDP is working to boost the technical, human and institutional capacities of national, sub-regional and regional bodies to analyze, formulate and integrate within development agendas, strategic policies and programmes for reducing the spread and consequences of HIV/AIDS.
UNDP works to ensure that political leaders have a broad understanding of the inter-relationships between the spread of HIV/AIDS and other development efforts and trends, including by creating partnerships between government and civil society organizations committed to addressing the human rights and gender dimensions of the crisis.
For more information on UNDPs HIV/AIDS work, visit: www.undp.org/hiv/
For more information on UNDPs work in Africa, visit: www.undp.org/regions/africa/
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