Botswana’s fight against HIV/Aids will be funded at least until 2009, the Merck Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have pledged.
In 2001, each gave $50-million to be spent over five years, and although there is no actual cut-off date, there are fears that funds will dry up in 2006.
”Both have now said they will fund the programmes to 2009, although they have not put a figure on the amount of extended funding,” the African Comprehensive HIV/Aids Partnership’s (Achap) Debbie Stanford said on Tuesday.
Achap is the agency that, in partnership with the Botswana government, oversees the Aids campaign.
Stanford was reacting to reports in The Economist, quoted in the South African Africa Investor, that of the Gates and Merck’s $100-million, only half has been allocated and not even that spent, because Botswana could not absorb the money and deploy it wisely.
”This,” she said, ”is not true; $77-million has been absorbed, [and] $23-million will most likely be allocated by the end of this year.”
It will be used to fund a new rural response to the epidemic. So far spending had been national, and it is now felt focus on rural areas is needed. Eleven districts have put forward programmes that will be evaluated for funding.
Achap itself is also investigating ways of continuing the fight well beyond 2009.
”We are talking with other organisations about new initiatives, which might involve new partners.”
Since its inception in 2000, the organisation has built up a wealth of talent and knowledge about HIV and Aids.
There is no indication that Merck and the Gates foundation will cut funding even beyond 2009.
On a visit to Botswana in September 2003 to check on the progress of the war against Aids, Bill Gates told President Festus Mogae that what he had seen had caused the foundation to rededicate itself to the programme.
”We are very committed. Our partnership with Botswana is for the long term,” he said.
The effects of HIV/Aids are not only those of the disease itself on the sufferer, but the effects on society and the economy.
”We will be here to relieve the problems caused by HIV/Aids in all its dimensions,” Gates said.
Struggle for funds
Africa Investor remains critical. It points out that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, looking for $10-billion yearly, has struggled to find $1-billion.
Experts at the Bangkok Aids conference in 2004 estimated the world needs $24-billion a year to deal with Aids.
Quoting Africa analyst Chinua Akukwe of the United States, Africa Investor warns that funds to fight Aids in the continent could dry up: ”Aids growth points in Asia and Eastern Europe are described as having global implications. This suggests an impending shift in priorities and strategies.”
He suggests an African response to HIV/Aids, bringing in the UN and the African Development Bank.
There is more. US President George Bush’s emergency plan involving $15-billion in five years for Aids relief (Pepfar) pushes brand-name drugs — no cheap generics.
Thanks to the US religious right, says Africa Investor, it doesn’t too much care for programmes based on condom use — rather those based on fidelity and abstinence.
As a result, 16 countries have no supplies of US-made contraceptives, family-planning programmes in Kenya have been hit and the birth rate is increasing. Nor does Pepfar think much about counselling for gays, sex workers and drug users.
‘Exclusion is divisive and unacceptable’
Mogae on Monday at the Fourth Ordinary Session of the African Union in Abuja, Nigeria, criticised the programme.
”Pepfar is making a difference, but its exclusion of some of our countries is divisive and unacceptable,” he said.
Botswana has been there. Around the cities, billboards proclaim ”ABC” — abstain, be faithful, condomise. Achap hands out 15-million condoms a year, but Botswana has the highest incidence of HIV in Africa.
Like his generals and lieutenants in Achap, Mogae has learnt a lot about Aids and what Africa has to do to fight it.
”We cannot do it alone. We must be open about our lack of capacity and ask for help,” he told the AU.
”Assistance in connection with HIV/Aids is enlightened humanitarian relief, which must not be conditional upon political considerations. I say enlightened because if the world thinks HIV and Aids is peculiarly African, they are in for a rude awakening, given the insidiousness of the epidemic.”
Botswana has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection.
The preliminary findings of the 2004 Botswana Aids Impact Survey indicated a 17,7% overall infection rate of the 1,7-million-strong population, including 34,4% of the high economically active group of 35- to 49-year-olds. — Sapa