4 October, 2007No. 25, October 2007
This is the 25th Issue of the ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin.
There is no Time to Celebrate!
For more than two years we have tried to give practical, timely and accurate information from a number of relevant sources. Too little feedback has reached us from our affiliates. Many of them are engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS. If we do not know about their activities, we cannot report on them and others cannot benefit from new initiatives and ideas.
Again, we make an appeal to send information on new agreements, campaigns and educational activities to [email protected]. Any feedback on the format and contents of the e-bulletin is also welcome.
There is certainly no time to celebrate: according to UNAIDS, each day still more than 8,000 people die of AIDS; almost 12,000 get newly infected with the deadly virus, many of them young people, in some regions more than half of them girls and women. Each day, 1,800 children become infected – the vast majority of them as newborns through mother-to-child transmission.
World AIDS Day, 1 December
Leadership is the theme for World AIDS Day 2007. The ongoing campaign slogan of the World AIDS Campaign is “Stop AIDS – Keep the Promise”.
Unions can demonstrate leadership at every level – in the workplace, in their own governing bodies, in women’s committees, in health and safety committees, in negotiations with companies, in the community and at the national policy level.
Any union member, shop steward, union official, committee member, gender representative who takes action on HIV/AIDS is a leader in the fight against the deadly disease.
ICEM calls on its affiliates to take the lead in campaigning on World AIDS Day, 1 December.
Before the end of October, affiliates will receive campaign material.
ICEM Affiliates in Côte d’Ivoire and Namibia
The HIV/AIDS Coordinator for the three affiliates in Côte d’Ivoire, Charlotte Nguessan, is particularly active. In addition to training workplace representatives, she has coordinated the writing of a proposal on HIV/AIDS workplace interventions, which was submitted to Partners against AIDS in August.
Charlotte was also appointed to the working group for the Round 7 proposal to the Global Fund.
In Namibia, the first two courses (out of three) for the training of VCT counsellors were completed in the Oranjemund region and at Okorusu Flourspar mining. The Mine Workers’ Union of Namibia makes sure the funds go a long way: instead of the usual 5 to 8 unionists, as in most other countries, it aims to train more than 20.
Global Fund: Record Amount in New Grants Recommended for Round 7
Round 7 applicants to the Global Fund submitted fewer, but bigger and better, proposals than applicants in all previous rounds.
The Global Fund's Technical Review Panel (TRP) has reviewed the 150 eligible Round 7 proposals that were submitted to the Fund, and has recommended that the board approve 73 of them. The grants recommended for approval will cost a total of $1,112 million over two years.
This is a record amount: in the six previous rounds, the two-year value of approved grants ranged from $571 million to $968 million. (The full duration of a grant is five years. After the first two years, a review takes place to decide about the continuation of a grant).
The percentage of proposals recommended for approval was also a record – 49%, up from an average of 38% over the previous rounds. On the other hand, the number of eligible proposals submitted in R7, at 150, was the lowest ever.
The TRP's recommendations regarding Round 7 will be reviewed and voted on by the Board of the Global Fund at its next meeting on November 12-13. (In previous rounds, the board has always followed the TRP's advice regarding which proposals to approve.)
(Source: Global Fund Observer Issue 77, 30 September 2007. GFO is a free service of Aidspan www.aidspan.org. To receive GFO, send an email to [email protected])
Global Fund: Donor Governments Pledge Record Amounts
Donors are expected to give the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at least $9.7 billion over the next three years, 57% more than they gave over the past three years. The pledges made at the Global Fund Replenishment Meeting in Berlin constituted the largest single financing exercise for a health issue that has ever taken place.
Some highlights of the pledges:
• The three countries that pledged the most for 2008-10 were USA (USD 2,172 million), France (USD 1,274 million) and the UK (USD 729 million).
• The three countries that pledged the largest percentage of their Gross National Income (GNI) were Norway (0.087%), Ireland (0.076%) and Sweden (0.075%).
• The country that pledged the largest amount per capita was the Netherlands.
• The three developed countries that pledged the smallest percentage of their GNI were Japan, Finland and Switzerland (0.004% each).
(Source: Global Fund Observer Issue 77, 30 September 2007. GFO is a free service of Aidspan www.aidspan.org. To receive GFO, send an email to [email protected])
ICAAP Held in Colombo
“Waves of Change - Waves of Hope” was the theme of the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 19 to 23 August, 2007. The conference brought together 2,500 delegates from 70 countries including politicians, officials, community workers, medical professionals, academics, journalists, trade union leaders and people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) to share knowledge and devise new strategies to deal with the disease.
The HIV epidemic in Asia and the Pacific remains diverse. A number of countries have taken decisive action to deliver effective and comprehensive AIDS programmes. However, the overall response in the region is still not keeping up with the pace and expanding reach of the epidemic. Leadership at various levels is still not adequately aware of the consequences of an escalating pandemic and its impact, not only on public health, but also on the socio-economic wellbeing of the people of the region.
(Source: adapted from the ITF HIV/AIDS Update 28, 1 September)
Cambodia: Prevalence Rate Down
Three international donors have decided to reduce aid for AIDS prevention to Cambodia as the country has reportedly achieved satisfactory progress.
The Global Fund, DFID and USAID will cut funds targeted at reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS in the country as nationwide infection rates have declined from 3.3% in the 1990s to 0.9% in 2006.
The reduction of aid does not mean the end of prevention activities. It is a recognition of the fact that the Government of Cambodia has enough capacity to carry on the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. For example, the number of voluntary confidential counselling and testing centres increased from 150 in 2005 to 190 this year.
(Source: xinhuanet, 20 September)
India: Case Studies on Corporate Response to HIV/AIDS
A recent World Bank paper discusses the role of business in the fight against HIV/AIDS in India, with particular focus on the private sector. The report highlights interventions by five Indian companies (Reliance Industries Ltd, Transport Corporation of India Ltd, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, DCM Shiram Consolidated Ltd and Hindustan Lever Ltd) ranging from advocacy and education to prevention and treatment.
The report argues that because a large share of the country’s HIV-positive population are employed by Indian industry, businesses can gain from early and decisive action to prevent HIV and AIDS. The paper also shows the advantages businesses bring to the fight against the pandemic and how the Indian government supports companies involved in HIV/AIDS interventions.
(Source: Eldis Corporate Responsibility Reporter, 6 September www.eldis.org/csr. Eldis is a service of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex)
South Africa: Setback for New AIDS Policy
The new AIDS policy in South Africa suffered a severe setback when the Deputy Minister of Health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was forced to resign in August.
During the long sick leave of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the Deputy Minister had worked for a turn-around in the government’s AIDS policy, advocating a massive increase in antiretroviral treatment. This had been delayed for years by the Health Minister who encouraged people living with HIV/AIDS to treat it with garlic, beetroot and olive oil.
(Source: various newspaper reports)
News from the Global Union Programme and Global Union Federations
The ICEM is represented on the Steering Committee of the Global Union AIDS Programme. The last meeting took place in Geneva on 3 October. Among other, the meeting discussed a closer engagement of Global Unions with the Global Fund and an initiative to cooperate with the World Bank. A meeting will take place in Washington in December involving the mining, transport, health and education sectors.
In its most recent HIV/AIDS updates (nos. 26, 27, 28 and 29 of 1 and 15 August and 1 and 15 September) the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) www.itfglobal.org reports, among other, on an agreement between the union and the employers on an HIV/AIDS policy for the railway industry in Zimbabwe; how low levels of awareness and prevalent social stigma contribute to the spread of the disease in Pakistan.
The Nigerian Government has approved a policy providing guidelines that aim to assist in the establishment of workplace HIV/AIDS policies in the formal sectors, as well as in the informal economy.