3 November, 2005November 2005
The second issue of the ICEM e-bulletin on HIV/AIDS is here. At the beginning of this issue we would like to draw your attention to the new ICEM website www.icem.org. Visit the website and click on HIV/AIDS. You will find the latest articles from ICEM sources. Links lead you to important HIV/AIDS sites of intergovernmental organisations and other Global Union Federations.
You can also find useful materials such as the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work or the HIV/AIDS Mining Tool Kit produced by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, as well as the Annual Report of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the statistical updates on the pandemic published by UNAIDS.
To introduce the subject of HIV/AIDS and the workplace, the ICEM has developed Power Point Presentations, which can be accessed through the website. There are versions for the regions Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Latin America as well as a global generic version. Download and use them for your own awareness and prevention activities.
We reiterate our call from the first issue of the e-bulletin. To spread the information on new agreements and campaigns and to build on best practices, affiliates and project coordinators are invited to send news and information to [email protected]. Any feedback on the format and contents of the e-bulletin is also welcome.
To subscribe to the e-bulletin, send an e-mail to [email protected]. Please put “subscribe ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin” in the subject line.
Unfortunately, the e-bulletin can only be published in English. For a free automated (non-ICEM) translation of this HIV-AIDS bulletin into other languages, you may want to try http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr or http://www.google.com/language_tools and insert the following URL into the window “Translate a Web page“:
www.icem.org/index.php?id=72&doc=1479
ICEM-JAF Asia and Pacific Seminar Focuses on HIV/AIDS
The Asia and Pacific Seminar held in Tokyo on 27 October in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of ICEM-JAF, the coordinating body of ICEM affiliates in Japan, focussed on HIV/AIDS and the workplace. In his opening address, Kiyoshi Ochiai, the Chairperson of ICEM-JAF and the ICEM Asia and Pacific Region, stressed the increasing relevance of the topic for the region and the need for increasing workplace activities by unions.
After an introduction by ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, the Global HIV/AIDS Coordinator, Hans Schwass, gave a power point presentation and facilitated the session, which included country reports and presentations by Japanese organisations of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), such as PEOPLE Tokyo (Positive Living and Community Empowerment), the NGO-TU Forum on PLWHA collaboration and JaNP+ (Japanese Network of PLWHA).
Trade union leaders from 14 countries and a large number of Japanese participants responded well to the message to intensify work on HIV/AIDS in the workplace and to increase awareness and prevention campaigns. The very timely seminar laid the foundation for the expansion of ICEM’s work in the Asia and Pacific region.
New Lafarge Global Agreement Contains HIV/AIDS Clause
The ICEM jointly with the IFBWW, the Global Union Federation for building and woodworkers, signed its twelfth global agreement with a multinational company.
The agreement with the French-based building materials manufacturer Lafarge on corporate social responsibility and international industrial relations cites the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles on Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, the United Nation’s Global Compact and the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. It contains a clause on HIV/AIDS committing the signatories to raise awareness and initiate prevention programmes in compliance with the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work.
WHO/Global Union Meeting Welcomes Universal Access
In a historic first meeting in Geneva on 6 and 7 October, WHO/AIDS representatives from field offices in Africa and from the Head Office and trade union leaders from six sub-Saharan African countries together with representatives from Global Unions discussed the unions’ support for expanded access to treatment. Although the 3x5 Initiative had brought treatment to one million people by June 2005, the goal of the Initiative of three million by the end of 2005 will not be reached.
The WHO recognises the role unions can play in scaling up treatment and achieving universal access. Meetings are planned at national levels in the six countries to develop sustaining partnerships between trade unions, WHO/AIDS, UNAIDS and ILOAIDS.
COSATU Slams Government’s Response to HIV/AIDS
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has renewed its attack on President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang for failing to provide leadership in addressing the country’s HIV/AIDS pandemic. Speaking at the Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) annual conference, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said that “denialism” meant the effects of HIV/AIDS were all too often ignored.
The trade union federation has long been a supporter of TAC’s campaign to force the government to roll out antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS. “We are sitting by while the biggest threat to our nation since apartheid is ruining our families and our communities,” said Vavi.
According to TAC, about 10,000 people were receiving antiretroviral treatment at public health facilities. This meant that government had failed to reach its own (already low) target of 53,000 people. It is estimated that for every 10 people who needed antiretroviral treatment, only one was getting it through the public sector and another one through the private sector.
(Source: Business Day, Johannesburg, 26 September 2005)
Global Fund Approves Fifth Round of Grants
At its eleventh board meeting in Geneva on 28-30 September, the Global Fund board approved 26 Round 5 grants in 20 countries that will cost US$382 million over the first two years, and provisionally approved, subject to sufficient funding being received next year, a further 37 grants that will cost US$344 million over the first two years. In total, these 63 "immediately approved" plus "provisionally approved" proposals will cost US$726 million over the first two years, and US$1.8 billion over five years. (The Fund approves proposals for five years but initially only commits funds for the first two years).
The reason that some of the grants were only provisionally approved is that the Fund is short of cash (see article in e-bulletin No. 1); this, in turn, is because 2005 is the first year in which substantial amounts of money need to be spent on renewal of grants from earlier Rounds that have reached the end of their first two years.
Grants that have only been provisionally approved will be formally approved in 2006 when sufficient donor pledges are received. However, any grants provisionally approved for which insufficient pledges have been received by the end of June 2006 will become "un-approved." Of the 63 grants to be eventually approved, AIDS grants account for 40% of funding while tuberculosis and malaria grants account for 27% each with the remaining funding dedicated to strengthen health systems. Africa receives 66% of the new funding.
The board made no decision as to when Round 6 will take place.
(Source: Global Fund Press Release of 30 September and Global Fund Observer Newsletter, Issue 51 of 3 October 2005)
The GFO is an independent source of news, analysis and commentary about the Global Fund. The Newsletter is provided free of charge; to receive it send an e-mail to [email protected].