Health GAP • Eastern African National Networks of AIDS Service Organizations • Coalition PLUS • Kenya AIDS NGO Consortium (KANCO) • African Civil Society Coalition on HIV/AIDS • Global Health Advocates France • Kenya Treatment Access Movement • RESULTS • Act Up Paris • Treatment Action Group

Press Statement

For Immediate Release: 4 Dec 2008

Africa and Global Civil Society at the 15th ICASA: We Demand Full Funding for the Global Fund and African and Global Leadership

(Dakar) At the opening of the 15th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), civil society groups working on global AIDS and health from Africa and around the world spoke out strongly against the broken AIDS promises of donors and African country
governments. The international community, including G8 donor  countries, has already promised to reach universal access to AIDS treatment and comprehensive prevention for all by 2010. Despite progress in some countries, massive gaps persist between those who have access to quality HIV care, treatment and effective prevention, and those who do not. The advocates argued that emergency funding for the Global Fund and other effective funding mechanisms is needed, as well as a renewed commitment, led by African countries, to reach
universal access and the Millennium Development Goals.

Advocates cited as an example the recent decision by the Global Fund Board to cut and cap funding for quality, successful programs due to a lack of donor resources. At its meeting in November, the Global Fund Board decided to cut one quarter off proposed future funding and cap the expansion of the highest performing grants at half the current rate of expansion. These cuts and caps—which will undermine countries’ abilities to reach targets and save lives—can only be reversed if donors pay their fair share to the Global Fund. Likewise, the recent Doha Summit on Financing for Development failed to generate a concrete plan for delivering on promised funding for health.

The following civil society experts are available for comment:

Olayide Akanni, Director, Journalists Against AIDS in Africa and African Civil Society Coalition on HIV/AIDS: “Two years away from 2010, the spirit and momentum to reach universal access is missing from this conference. Donors and African country governments are breaking their promises. In addition, a toxic debate is pitting AIDS spending against health systems spending—critical institutions such as WHO and UNAIDS must be more forceful in resolving this debate once and for all.” cell: +221 77 42 16472

Asia Russell, Director, International Policy, Health GAP, and Developed Country NGO Board Member, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: “Donor countries pledged that, if countries mobilized quality demand for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, they would commit the necessary funding. Now that countries have scaled up the size and quality of their requests to the Global Fund just two years before the universal access deadline, donors have a moral responsibility to fully fund these life saving programs.” cell: +221 77 53 88 797 or +1 267 475 2645

Julius Sabuni, Advocacy and Human Rights Team Leader, EANNASO: "In order to reach universal access and the MDG targets, indigenous civil society organisations (CSOs) must be fully funded and be enabled to function as an integral part of country systems. We call on governments and donors to develop clear mechanisms to ensure we achieve this.” cell: +221 77 184 7967

Bintou Dembele, ARCADSIDA, a Malian medical care NGO, and Coalition PLUS: “Africa can’t afford for the Dakar ICASA to be another conference for nothing. The political will of leaders is dwindling: they no longer mention universal access by 2010, and they renege on their previous funding commitments. The concrete consequence in Africa of leaders breaking their promises to deliver AIDS treatment for all by 2010 is preventable illness and death.” cell: (+221 77 538 71 33)

Lucy Chesire, a TB/HIV activist from Kenya (ACTION TB): “In Africa, people with AIDS enrolled in ARV programs have often left to die of preventable and treatable tuberculosis. This can stop now if HIV and TB programs integrate their respective services. What is needed for this integration to happen is leadership from African health ministers.”

James Kamau, Kenya Treatment Access Movement (KETAM): “African leaders need to understand that HIV/AIDS is an African problem and needs African leadership—like actualizing the commitment they made in 2001 to spend at least 15% of their budgets on health. Breaking this promise is the highest manifestation of betrayal to African citizens who placed you in office—you must be accountable to us.” cell: +221 77 84 7968

Gcebile Ndlovu, International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) Southern Africa: “The epidemic in Africa is feminine—that is the reality. There is an urgent need to invest meaningfully in programs that address the immense challenges faced by women and girls.”

Beatrice Were, Uganda AIDS Activist: “Twenty five years into the epidemic, we have witnessed too much rhetoric by African leaders. We demand that our leaders own the AIDS crisis and demonstrate this by committing commensurate resources required to respond adequately to it.”

Allan Ragi, Executive Director, Kenyan AIDS NGO Consortium (KANCO): In the last decade we have seen how much leadership can make a real difference in Kenya and in africa; now we have to go the rest of the way, in choosing good leadership over bad, and in insisting that our
leaders fulfill their commitments.” cell: +254 722 520 053

ENDS

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