Aids-related deaths in South Africa: 2 133 490 at noon on May 16 2007
Spotlight on Malawi: Small Aids organisations in Malawi are being monitored after a recent move by the National Aids Commission (NAC) to suspend financial aid to them because many cannot account for funds allocated to them.
But community-based organisations (CBOs) have warned that the NAC’s decision could jeopardise their efforts to curb the spread of the epidemic in a country with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Over 30 CBOs have failed to account for money from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, distributed by the NAC.
‘Some of the CBOs in Karonga [district] cannot do their work because the NAC has suspended funding on allegations that they swindled money meant for HIV/Aids programmes. The problem is with the NAC as well, because they just give out money to organisations without finding out how accountable these CBOs are,” said an official from Karonga District Assembly.
Many CBO members who start local HIV/Aids interventions have no experience of running an organisation, and struggle to write funding proposals or report to donors. Organisations such as the Malawi Interfaith Aids Association, an umbrella body of faith-based organisations, are calling on the NAC to help them manage their finances.
The donor community and bodies such as the NAC also have a responsibility to build the capacity of CBOs, said Donald Makwakwa, programme officer for the Malawi National Association of People Living with HIV/Aids (Manaso).
The CBOs have also accused the NAC of delaying payments to projects that qualified for funding, and have expressed concern that such delays pose a serious threat to their continued existence. — plusnews
Aids-related deaths in South Africa: 2 120 225 at noon on May 2 2007
Walk the talk: Urgent action by African leaders is needed if they are to make good on commitments to roll back the Aids pandemic.
Speakers at this week’s Social Aspects of HIV/Aids and Health Research Alliance (Sahara) conference, ‘Innovations in Access to Prevention, Treatment and Care in HIV/Aids”, in Kenya’s western city of Kisumu, said political commitment to combat Aids must be accompanied by adequate funding for intervention programmes, as well as strategic partnerships with NGOs, researchers, the private sector and people infected and affected by HIV.
‘Key stakeholders must come together to walk the talk … they must consider Aids as an emergency, because it is,” Olive Shisana, head of South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council and founder of Sahara, told the conference during the opening ceremony.
She said that although governments had made repeated commitments nationally and at international conventions they were failing to live up to their promises of increased funding for healthcare and stronger leadership in the fight against Aids.
Some countries, such as Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, had registered success in reducing prevalence, Shisana noted, but many other aspects needed much more effort. For example, Namibia had the best record in Southern Africa of prevention of mother-to-child transmission, but reached just a quarter of all pregnant women.
‘The vulnerability of populations across the continent and the disproportionate deaths [due to Aids] and the apparent inadequate response of governments and the international community, shows that there is still a need to search for innovations to find an adequate response to the pandemic,” said Dan Kaseje, vice-chancellor of the Great Lakes University of Kenya, which is situated in Kisumu.
Source: PlusNews