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4 December, 2007December 2007
ICEM Reconfirms Commitment to Fight HIV/AIDS Pandemic
On the eve of World AIDS Day, 1 December, the ICEM leadership recommitted to fight the battle to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS through awareness, education, and poverty eradication campaigns. The ICEM’s 4th World Congress, held 22-24 November in Bangkok, Thailand, affirmed that commitment.
“As the newly-elected leaders, we reaffirm ICEM’s commitment to fight HIV/AIDS,” said ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana and General Secretary Manfred Warda. “Hundreds of union leaders representing 180 affiliates in 75 countries signed the pledge for World AIDS Day at our Congress.”
That pledge, signed by not only the 840 trade unions leaders attending the Bangkok Congress, but taken back to national unions for thousands more signatures, commits the trade unionists to take the fight inside the workplace.
It commits to outright rejection of all forms of discrimination and victimisation of people living with HIV/AIDS; it recognises that the gender dimension of HIV/AIDS, and promises to fight for equal gender relations and the empowerment of women; and, in maintaining ICEM’s continued work in this area, it encourages voluntary counselling and testing of workers and family members, as well as providing support for those who disclose their HIV-positive status.
The pledge also makes demands of employers and governments. It demands that companies negotiate policies with trade union that are in sync with the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work; it calls on employers to implement awareness-raising and prevention programmes jointly with trade unions; it call on firms operating in remote geographic areas with little or no health services to take responsibility for providing care and treatment; and it promises to undertake efforts to obtain affordable drugs from pharmaceutical companies and production of high-quality generics for those afflicted with the virus.
Regarding governments, the pledge advocates access for all to public health, including free or affordable antiretroviral treatments; it promises to promote legislation on discrimination and social protection; and it promises to lobby donor countries for accelerated financial resources for the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“The ICEM and its affiliates are strategically positioned in our sectors, and in our thousands of workplaces, to play a direct role in stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said Zokwana and Warda. “On World AIDS Day 2007, we call on all social partners to intensify campaigns in order to reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”
Global Fund Approves Round 7 Grants
The board meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria held in Kunming, China, approved 73 Round 7 grants that will cost US$1,119 million over the first two years and US$2,762 million over five years. As a result of recent new pledges, the Fund has sufficient money to pay for all grants that were recommended by the Technical Review Panel.
Round 7 applicants to the Global Fund submitted fewer, but bigger and better, proposals than applicants in all previous rounds.
The two-year cost of approved Round 7 grants – US$1,119 million over two years – is a record amount. In the six previous rounds, the two-year cost of approved grants ranged from US$571 to 968 million.
The percentage of proposals recommended for approval was also a record – 49%, up from an average of 38% over the previous six rounds. On the other hand, this still means that just over half of all proposals submitted were not approved, despite the fact that there is an enormous need for scaled-up programmes to tackle the three diseases and that there is an increased availability of funding.
The average two-year cost of the proposals recommended for approval in Round 7 was US$15 million – again a record, up from an average of US$10 million over the previous rounds. On the other hand, the number of eligible proposals submitted in Round 7, at 150, was the lowest ever.
The Board's decisions as to which proposals got approval was, as always, entirely based on the advice it received from the Technical Review Panel (TRP), an independent and non-political body of 34 experts from around the world who serve in their personal capacities. No board members or Secretariat employees are members of the TRP.
(Source: Global Fund Press Release, 12 November 2007 and Global Fund Observer Issue 79, 12 November 2007. GFO is a free service of Aidspan www.aidspan.org. To receive GFO, send an email to [email protected])
News from Affiliates
The United Mineworkers’ Union in Sierra Leone continues its excellent work in peer education. Two more training workshops were held in Hangha and Jembeh in November. A total of 76 participants attended these two workshops.
The training was conducted in partnership with mining companies, artisanal miners, and the communities. Funding was provided by the ICEM HIV/AIDS project.
The union’s General Secretary, Ezekiel Dyke, attended the Workshop on the Role of the Private Sector in the Fight against HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in Bamako, capital of Mali, organised by the World Bank.
Swedish Project Targets Workplaces
The Swedish Industrial and Metalworkers’ Union, IF Metall, and the International Council of Swedish Industry are jointly involved in workplace-based HIV/AIDS programmes throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The project, which is co-funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), presently operates in 25 workplaces of large Swedish multinational companies, involving over 10,000 workers with more than 45,000 family members.
The project aims to strengthen workers and management leadership through joint workplace committees. Through these committees voluntary counselling and testing, peer education, management awareness, condom distribution, couple counselling, and treatment are made possible.
UNAIDS 2007 Epidemic Update
The 2007 AIDS Epidemic Update by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that global HIV prevalence - the percentage of people living with HIV - has levelled off and that the number of new infections has fallen, in part as a result of the impact of HIV programmes.
However, in 2007, 33.2 million people were estimated to be living with HIV, 2.5 million people became newly infected, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and 2.1 million people died of AIDS.
The significant reduction from almost 40 million people infected at the end of 2006 is only, to a small extent, due to the impact of HIV programmes. The new report reflects improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic. These new data and advances in methodology have resulted in substantial revisions from previous estimates.
While the global prevalence of HIV infection—the percentage of people infected with HIV—has levelled off, the total number of people living with HIV is increasing because of ongoing acquisition of HIV infection, combined with longer survival times, in a continuously growing general population.
(Source: UNAIDS Press Release, 20 November. The report can be accessed at www.unaids.org)
News from the Global Union Programme and Global Unions
In its most recent HIV/AIDS updates (nos. 32 and 33 of 1 and 28 November) the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) www.itfglobal.org reports on the signing of a joint commitment of the central unions in India, and the launching by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign among high-risk groups in Nepal.
On the eve of World AIDS Day, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) launched a global action plan against HIV/AIDS. It will focus on three main aims: enhance HIV/AIDS work by ITUC affiliates; strengthen global advocacy on HIV/AIDS; and coordination and cooperation between national union centres and the Global Union Federations. (Source: ITUC Press Release, 30 November).