Africa Action: Activism for Africa Since 1953
Campaign to End HIV/AIDS
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the greatest global threat in the world today. Africa is ground zero of the crisis – home to just over 10% of the world’s population, but nearly two-thirds of those living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. In 2006 alone, more than 2 million Africans died of AIDS.
Africa has been hardest hit by HIV/AIDS because poverty has left its people most vulnerable, and inadequate access to health care and other basic needs has fueled the spread of the disease. Now, African efforts to defeat HIV/AIDS are hindered by insufficient resources, by the crippling debt burden, and by U.S. and international policies that restrict access to essential treatment and comprehensive health care. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 20 million Africans have died of AIDS. Yet the world is still failing to respond to this crisis with the urgency that is required.
In recent years, international conferences and United Nations (UN) meetings have produced new pledges to act. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria was created in 2002 to raise and disburse additional resources to combat these deadly diseases. While this vehicle has made important progress in over 130 countries, and while it could provide the key to defeating HIV/AIDS in Africa and globally, it remains under-funded by the U.S. and other wealthy countries. In 2003, President Bush committed to a paltry $200 million a year to support the Global Fund, instead of the $3.5 billion that would constitute its equitable contribution based on its share of the global economy.
Rather than channeling its HIV/AIDS funding through the Global Fund, the Bush Administration announced its own initiative in 2003, the so-called “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR). This program initially promised $15 billion over a five-year period to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. The President created a new government bureaucracy to oversee this plan, headed by a former pharmaceutical company executive.
But PEPFAR is under-funded, and it only provides support to 12 countries in Africa, leaving three-quarters of the continent out of the picture. Moreover, the Bush Administration’s reluctance to promote access to cheaper, generic versions of essential HIV/AIDS medications in this program undermines its reach and reveals the White House’s close ties to the pharmaceutical lobby.
In addition, the Bush Administration supports conservative measures that undermine a comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. These include emphasizing abstinence-only measures, prioritizing prevention over treatment, and opposing the use of condoms. This perspective places a premium on ideology over science and public health, and flies in the face of what is known about the most effective ways to stem the spread of this disease in Africa and elsewhere.
At a UN review of global progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS in May 2006, international governments once again fell far short of acting appropriately to combat this epidemic. Despite their recognition that almost $23 billion per year would be required by 2010 to finance the global AIDS effort, the U.S. and other world leaders failed to establish clear targets to achieve such a goal.
HIV/AIDS can be defeated, and millions of lives can still be saved in Africa and globally, if the U.S. and other countries mount an urgent international response to support African efforts to beat this pandemic. But because most of those affected by the disease to date are poor and Black, in Africa and here in the U.S., the response of policymakers to the HIV/AIDS crisis has been slow and absolutely inadequate. The pattern of the HIV/AIDS pandemic reveals clearly a system of global apartheid, where access to wealth and basic human rights, like the right to health, is dictated largely by race and place.
Throughout Africa, communities, organizations and activists are doing what they can to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to provide care to those living with the disease. But their efforts are hindered by insufficient resources, and by international policies imposed by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others that undermine access to health care and impede Africa’s development.
Africa Action asserts health as a fundamental human right. Our Campaign to End HIV/AIDS in Africa seeks to mobilize U.S. activists to change the policies of our own government to help end the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.
Africa has been hardest hit by HIV/AIDS because poverty has left its people most vulnerable, and inadequate access to health care and other basic needs has fueled the spread of the disease. Now, African efforts to defeat HIV/AIDS are hindered by insufficient resources, by the crippling debt burden, and by U.S. and international policies that restrict access to essential treatment and comprehensive health care. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 20 million Africans have died of AIDS. Yet the world is still failing to respond to this crisis with the urgency that is required.
In recent years, international conferences and United Nations (UN) meetings have produced new pledges to act. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria was created in 2002 to raise and disburse additional resources to combat these deadly diseases. While this vehicle has made important progress in over 130 countries, and while it could provide the key to defeating HIV/AIDS in Africa and globally, it remains under-funded by the U.S. and other wealthy countries. In 2003, President Bush committed to a paltry $200 million a year to support the Global Fund, instead of the $3.5 billion that would constitute its equitable contribution based on its share of the global economy.
Rather than channeling its HIV/AIDS funding through the Global Fund, the Bush Administration announced its own initiative in 2003, the so-called “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR). This program initially promised $15 billion over a five-year period to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. The President created a new government bureaucracy to oversee this plan, headed by a former pharmaceutical company executive.
But PEPFAR is under-funded, and it only provides support to 12 countries in Africa, leaving three-quarters of the continent out of the picture. Moreover, the Bush Administration’s reluctance to promote access to cheaper, generic versions of essential HIV/AIDS medications in this program undermines its reach and reveals the White House’s close ties to the pharmaceutical lobby.
In addition, the Bush Administration supports conservative measures that undermine a comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. These include emphasizing abstinence-only measures, prioritizing prevention over treatment, and opposing the use of condoms. This perspective places a premium on ideology over science and public health, and flies in the face of what is known about the most effective ways to stem the spread of this disease in Africa and elsewhere.
At a UN review of global progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS in May 2006, international governments once again fell far short of acting appropriately to combat this epidemic. Despite their recognition that almost $23 billion per year would be required by 2010 to finance the global AIDS effort, the U.S. and other world leaders failed to establish clear targets to achieve such a goal.
HIV/AIDS can be defeated, and millions of lives can still be saved in Africa and globally, if the U.S. and other countries mount an urgent international response to support African efforts to beat this pandemic. But because most of those affected by the disease to date are poor and Black, in Africa and here in the U.S., the response of policymakers to the HIV/AIDS crisis has been slow and absolutely inadequate. The pattern of the HIV/AIDS pandemic reveals clearly a system of global apartheid, where access to wealth and basic human rights, like the right to health, is dictated largely by race and place.
Throughout Africa, communities, organizations and activists are doing what they can to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to provide care to those living with the disease. But their efforts are hindered by insufficient resources, and by international policies imposed by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others that undermine access to health care and impede Africa’s development.
Africa Action asserts health as a fundamental human right. Our Campaign to End HIV/AIDS in Africa seeks to mobilize U.S. activists to change the policies of our own government to help end the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.
Campaign Resources:
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U.S. Policy Resources
Africa Action Joins Over 300 Organizations to Demonstrate Support for a Legislative Repeal of the Global Gag Rule
“Organizations are working hard to find a more permanent solution to the Global Gag Rule. Africa Action, along with 300 other organizations wrote a letter to the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs to enhance the provision of family planning and other reproductive health services by prohibiting the imposition of the dangerous Global Gag Rule on health and family planning providers working overseas…” April 2010 Women's Rights are Human Rights Africa Action Statement on International Women's Day “March 8th marks International Women’s Day and the 15th Anniversary of the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, held in Beijing. Today, Africa Action celebrates the many achievements of women. Throughout the continent, women are organizing to strengthen and reinforce women’s movements and civil society organization’s capacity for gender advocacy and activism. However, women still face discrimination and inequality…” March 2010 AIDS Activists to President Obama: Your Choices are Failing People Living with HIV "Join Africa Action on December 1st, Worlds AIDS Day, for a rally and march from LaFayette Park to Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC..." November 24, 2009 Africa Action Applauds U.S. Decision to Lift HIV Travel Ban, Calls for Sustained U.S. leadership on Global Health Ahead of Global Fund Board Meeting “Ahead of this weekend’s 20th Board Meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and malaria, it’s vital that the U.S. fulfill its commitment to fight HIV/AIDS and fully fund The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria..." November 6, 2009 Africa Action Calls for a U.S. Contribution of $1.050 billion for Fiscal Year 2010 "This letter, endorsed by Africa Action and over 20 other organizations, was sent to each member of the House and Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs and subcommittees as well as to the Chair and Ranking Members of the full appropriations committees..." September 24, 2009 Setting the Message Straight: Civil Society Delivers Statement to Dr. Eric Goosby, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator "We, the undersigned 60 civil society organizations and networks of people living with HIV and TB, working in 28 countries across Southern Africa and the world, write to express our dismay at your statement that a target of achieving universal access for HIV prevention and treatment in Southern Africa by 2015 is ‘unrealistic’ because the resources required to enable this will not be found...." September 25, 2009 Africa Action Responds to the Obama Administration’s FY10 Detailed Budget Release "This morning President Obama released the detailed FY2010 budget. Preliminary analysis by Africa Action shows that there are serious funding short falls for HIV/AIDS programs..." May 7, 2009 100 Days Pass Obama Administration "The first 100 days of the Obama Presidency has passed. The tone of U.S. foreign policy has changed. It signifies a break from the failures of the past, but with an economic crisis here in the U.S., it would be detrimental to marginalize U.S. policy towards Africa..." April 30, 2009 Greater U.S. Leadership Needed in the Global Fight to End AIDS “Leadership was the theme of the 2007 World AIDS Day on December 1st. While progress has been made in expanding HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention and care programs, scaled up international efforts are still far from the levels necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and HIV/AIDS remains the number one cause of death in Africa…Click here to read the report.” November 30, 2007 |
