AFRICA: Report questions value of past AIDS lessons

JOHANNESBURG, 31 Mar 2004 (PLUSNEWS) - A new think tank report has stressed the importance of local leadership in tackling the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and questioned whether past lessons had actually been learned, the multimedia broadcasting service, Voice of America, reported.

The London-based Panos Institute report said spending large sums of money in the hope of achieving rapid results had often brought "disappointing or short-lived" results.

Tom Scalway, author of the report, said there were clear reasons why Uganda, Senegal and Thailand had been successful in curbing the spread of the HI virus.

"The importance of local leadership; the importance of a civil society response; a vibrant media environment; the importance of local expertise – all these are locally owned and not imposed from outside. It's not expertise that's coming from the US or from northern Europe; it's capacity and it's energy that's within a country," Scalway added.

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