The opportunities for more effective Commonwealth engagement in the combat of HIV/AIDS are timely and serious
Commonwealth countries represent a high proportion of the incidence of infection and of AIDS.
Not only in sub-Saharan Africa, India and the Caribbean but among particularly vulnerable peoples from Papua-New Guinea to northern Canada.
Commonwealth countries have a wealth of professional talent engaged in maintaining health systems meeting diverse challenges, but the erosion of personnel from high-incidence areas needs to be met with concerted action. The Commonwealth has established the principles for dealing with migration of health personnel, but they are not yet effectively embodied practice. The strengthening of health systems in high-incidence countries is urgent.
The Commonwealth has resources and policy clout. Its membership includes prosperous donor countries which have strong voices in the UN, the OECD, the G-20 and international financial institutions. There is, right now, opportunity to vastly enlarge resources available for health and HIV/AIDS in particular, via the implementation of levy on international currency transactions, which occur in the trillions each day. A tiny levy on sterling for example can yield more than ten billion per annum. Any Commonwealth country can initiate, and the international climate is warm – the Leading Group of more than fifty countries have been considering it for months, the G-20 has mandated the IMF to study, the UN has just released a report on the contribution of innovative financing to development. What is urgently needed is leadership. Commonwealth governments can provide it. The time is now.
John W. Foster (Dr.)
The North-South Institute
Ottawa, Canada