By Alvaro Bermejo - 23rd November 2011
This year is one of promises and hope but also of great concern, with donor funding for HIV/Aids having declined for the first time in more than a decade
Alvaro Bermejo
Alvaro Bermejo urges the EU to address the human rights aspect of the HIV/Aids epidemic.
World Aids day 2011 marks 30 years of the HIV/Aids epidemic and comes in the year world leaders adopted a political declaration on intensifying efforts to eliminate HIV/Aids.
The declaration contains a set of ambitious targets for 2015 including: 15 million people accessing antiretroviral treatment, halving sexual transmission and transmission among people who inject drugs, eliminating mother-to-child transmission and commitment to an additional €4bn funding by 2015.
This year is one of promises and hope but also of great concern, with donor funding for HIV/Aids having declined for the first time in more than a decade.
The EU is one of the biggest contributors of the global HIV/Aids response and has played a key role in ensuring the adoption of the new targets. But the situation doesn’t look promising. There are few indications that the EU will take on the leadership it showed in the past decade.
Contributions to the global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria have been frozen by several EU donors, including the European commission and the economic crisis is impacting support for development assistance in some member states.
At the same time, the European Union programme for action to confront Aids, tuberculosis and malaria 2007-2011 is coming to an end and there is no sign that the commission will develop a new policy framework for HIV/Aids despite repeated calls from the European council, parliament and civil society.
Instead, the EC has been saying that Aids may only be addressed in the context of a broader EU action plan on global health to be developed over the next few years. However, integrating the HIV/Aids response in a broader global health approach disregards human rights-based approaches and targets in the 2011 declaration.
Three decades into the epidemic, the human rights of people living with HIV – or who are particularly vulnerable to the virus (including sex workers, people who use drugs or men who have sex with men) – are still breached causing them to suffer the burden of disease and the subsequent loss of other rights such as employment, freedom from discrimination or freedom of movement.
The EU needs to recognise the importance of the human rights aspect of the HIV/Aids response and put in place steps which go beyond strengthening health systems if we are to get to ‘zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids related deaths’ – the theme of this year’s world Aids day.
The recently developed “strategic investment framework” is an evidence-based model that calculates financial needs for the HIV epidemic and resource allocations.
It shows that by implementing a coordinated range of interventions that have been proven to be most effective, by using a human rights approach and targeting populations with the highest needs it is possible to dramatically reduce infections, Aids deaths and the cost of the HIV response.
To sustain the gains of the last decade and meet the 2015 targets, there is an urgent need for the EU to develop a new framework for its global HIV/Aids response that is aligned with the 2011 political declaration and fully integrates the strategic investment framework to guide the EU’s HIV investment and programming.
Let’s make next year the year we deliver on the promises, bring hope to millions and take the steps to ending Aids in a generation.
Alvaro Bermejo is executive director of the International HIV/Aids Alliance.
