Blog: African governments also need to dig deep for AIDS treatment

Vienna, 19 July 2010 (PlusNews) - Ahead of the AIDS 2010 conference in Vienna, Austria, the international medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has launched "The Ten Consequences of AIDS Treatment Delayed, Deferred, or Denied", another damning indictment of international donors back-pedalling on promises of HIV funding. 

MSF details drops in funding by the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), European governments and the World Bank, as well as waning support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The report joins a chorus of civil society activists badgering donors to live up to their promises and calling for further cuts in the price of generic antiretroviral drugs (ARVs).

What these repeated calls lack is any meaningful pressure on governments in developing countries to also take some responsibility for providing HIV treatment to their citizens. Yes, African governments are poor, but are they so poor that they must depend almost entirely on foreign support to keep their HIV-positive citizens alive?

Many countries, simply by adjusting their spending priorities, could make larger contributions to HIV treatment. Kenya's Members of Parliament recently proposed an 18 percent increase in their own salaries, which would make them among the highest paid MPs in the world.

If approved, the MPs will each earn US$370 just for showing up for parliamentary sessions - an amount that could pay for four people's ARVs for a year. A full house on a single day could potentially buy ARVs for about 900 people for a year.

For the first time ever, Kenya's national budget made a specific provision of $11.25 million to purchase ARVs. It's a start, but imagine how much more could be done with that 18 percent pay hike the MPs are getting!

Under the 2001 Abuja Declaration, African governments promised to spend at least 15 percent of their national budgets on health. Most have not lived up to this commitment, but we hear relatively little criticism of this failure, which has also cost lives.

So, while civil society rightly continues to urge rich countries to live up to their funding promises, they must not forget to also keep up the pressure on developing nations to play their part in keeping their citizens alive.

kr/ks/he

Theme (s): Aid Policy, Care/Treatment - PlusNews, Governance, HIV/AIDS (PlusNews),

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]