Stephen Lewis (left), former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and co-director of AIDS-Free World, with Zackie Achmat, founder of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. (Credit: Colin Patterson)
Funds for HIV/AIDS pandemic ‘scarce’ amid financial crisis
6 October 2009
‘We’ve lost 25 million lives and we’ve got another 6 million lives we are trying to save’ – Commonwealth conference
Governments must not “opportunistically” use the global financial crisis to withhold funding for vital HIV/AIDS treatment programmes, a high-level conference attended by high commissioners, policy-makers and activists from around the Commonwealth heard last week.
“We face this financial crisis which is being used in the most opportunistic fashion by governments to say they can no longer afford to fund [interventions],” Stephen Lewis, former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and co-director of AIDS-Free World, claimed, insisting that greater not fewer resources are needed to tackle the pandemic.
Did you know?
- The Commonwealth makes up over 30 per cent of the world’s population. Yet, more than 60 per cent of people living with HIV/AIDS reside in Commonwealth countries.
- US$25.1 billion will be required for the global AIDS response in 2010 for low and middle-income countries - almost US$12 billion more than was available in 2008. (Source UNAIDS)
“We’ve lost 25 million lives and we’ve got another 6 million we are trying to save,” he told delegates at the ‘Supporting the Commonwealth Response’ seminar at Marlborough House in London, UK, from 1 to 2 October 2009.
Acclaimed campaigner Mr Lewis insisted that the amount required to support sufferers was small next to the sums used to save stricken banks over the past year.
“Compare this with the trillions of dollars that have gone into bailouts and stimulus packages,” he explained, “we’re talking about a few billion to sustain human recovery.”
Mr Lewis called for new mechanisms such as an international currency transaction levy and increased access to medicines through a patent pool to help plug an “enormous” estimated US$12 billion annual shortfall in HIV/AIDS funding.
What is a patent pool?
- A patent pool is created when a number of patents rights, held by different owners, are brought together (pooled) and collectively managed.
- Advocates argue that patent pools can overcome patent barriers and increase access to affordable generic medicines.
The conference and workshops - co-organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Commonwealth HIV and AIDS Action Group, and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance - addressed the need to increase access to medicines, and advancing law reforms to increase the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS responses.
The conference came just a day after a joint UNAIDS, Unicef and World Health Organization report revealed that although 4 million people are now receiving life-saving antiretroviral drugs, nearly two-thirds of those in need in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa are not.
New ways of thinking
Dr Ernest Massiah, Head of the Secretariat’s Health Section, echoed Mr Lewis’s claim that the financial crisis is “affecting drastically how programmes are to be funded”, adding that “money is now scarce and more fiercely fought over”.
“Eighty per cent of the people who need treatment are in Africa, but 80 per cent of the drugs that they need are imported,” he said in his opening remarks. “We need to think how we move forward to ensure drugs are more available and at more equitable prices.”
Dr Massiah added that the meeting was an opportunity to agree on “new ways of thinking about old problems”. It would, he said, help policy-makers to “think outside the box and to strategise on the practical solutions”.
What is a currency transaction levy?
A currency transaction levy (CTL) is a tax on wholesale or interbank foreign exchange transactions.
Advocates argue that a CTL of 0.005 per cent applied to all major Commonwealth currencies could generate more than US$10 billion for health.
Zackie Achmat, founder of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, emphasised the important role of civic action in advancing law reforms and protecting the rights of those affected by HIV and AIDS.
“Every right to freedom, dignity, equality, the right to life, the right to freedom of association, all those rights, pre-exist any constitutional codification and the only guarantors of those rights are human beings,” he said.
“No-one else guarantees those rights, and the only way those rights are enforced are through collective action. The institutions we use for that collective action are our parliaments, our judiciaries, and a range of other bodies that are part of the panoply of democratic constitutions everywhere.”
Related Documents
Currency Transaction Levy Brief
Human Rights and Law Reform Briefing
Ernest Massiah Opening Remarks
Please send us application guidelines for the Funds of HIV/AIDS Fund in which we are interested to apply.
We need to concentrate on the Africa continent. My suggestion is asking for a TAX WAIVER on HIV medications importation. This should be an agreement between Governments and the respective communities.
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