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Civil society in Africa has shown itself ready to participate in the development and execution of these programs -- and ready to demand accountability for the use of funds available to fight HIV/AIDS, including funds redirected from debt payments to health care, nutrition and education programs.
Progress is visible. Uganda, for example – one of the first countries selected for debt relief – has used some of the money available as a result of debt relief to create a development program that incorporates an AIDS prevention initiative. The rate of newly infected persons dropped from over 25% in 1992 to below 10% today, earning praise from international relief agencies, as well as from the World Bank. Through its debt reduction program Uganda is presently redirecting $110 million to fight HIV/AIDS. Ugandan civil society groups and international agencies have exercised careful oversight over all stages of program operation and funding.
But we’re not there yet, not by a long shot. When we take the crucial step of placing the AIDS crisis in context, we quickly become attuned to how interrelated it all is – how AIDS devastates not only health systems but also education, jobs, and food supply.
A Cameroonian official in November declared his amazement “by the magnitude and rapidity with which the global coalition was set up to combat terrorism after the sad September 11 events. If the international community,” he went on, “can mobilize the same effort and solidarity, we can win the war against HIV/AIDS.” [Comment by Communications Minister Jacques Fame Ndongo, reported by Reuters, November 27, 2001]
Mobilization, we have argued here, requires far more than specific health initiatives. It requires instead an aggressive campaign against poverty itself, a campaign of which the U.S. must be a part. As a Malawian official added at a regional consultation on the global AIDS fund, there is “a moral obligation on the international community to invest in human development. I am not asking,” he declared, “for charity. I am asking for justice.” [Opening statement by Vice President Justin Malewezi at the Africa Regional Consultation on the Global Fund, November 13, 2001.]
