PHA-Exchange> Report: How the Fight against HIV/AIDS is being Undermined by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund

[WGNRR]

An interesting read!

Regards,
Nadia

WGNRR Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights
www.wgnrr.org / office at wgnrr.nl



Blocking Progress: How the Fight against HIV/AIDS is being Undermined by the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund


  A new policy briefing by ActionAid International USA, Global AIDS
Alliance, Student Global AIDS Campaign, and RESULTS Educational Fund is now
available: http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf

  ·         Is the International Monetary Fund more concerned with keeping
inflation low and maintaining macroeconomic stability than enabling
governments in poor countries to save lives impacted by the HIV/AIDS
pandemic?

  ·         Why are more than 4,000 trained nurses and thousands other
health workers in Kenya sitting unemployed when they should be working to
combat the HIV/AIDS emergency in their country?

  In advance of the Annual Fall Meetings of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank, a new report accuses the IMF of undermining the
fight against AIDS.  The report by four humanitarian agencies says that
despite the severity of the AIDS crisis, IMF restrictions on public spending
in poor countries are making it difficult for countries to hire more
doctors, nurses, and health workers, as well as to buy the medicines
required to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic effectively.  The IMF s spending
constraints may also block poor countries from accepting desperately-needed
outside help.  In 2002-2003, for example, the African nation of Uganda,
which faces a major AIDS crisis,  nearly rejected a $52 million grant from
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria because it sought to stay within
the strict budgetary constraints it had agreed to maintain in order to
acquire loans from the IMF.

  At the recent international AIDS Conference in Bangkok, United Nations
experts called for a massive increase in financing for AIDS programs, urging
that $20 billion be provided to developing countries by 2007. The report
argues that IMF policies that seek to keep inflation at very low levels do
so at the cost of blocking higher public spending on fighting AIDS.  But the
report notes that many economists think inflation and public spending could
go higher, and therefore IMF policies are unjustifiably undermining the
global fight against AIDS.

  "This report should be real wake-up call to people concerned about the
alarming impact of AIDS on prospects for development and stability," stated
Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "It shows
the terrible price we could pay if a rigid adherence to economic orthodoxy
wins out over common sense."

   "The IMF's insistence on very low inflation targets must be scrutinized,"
said the report's principle author, Rick Rowden, of ActionAid International
USA. "This issue must be brought into the center of public debate if
countries are ever to be allowed to scale-up public health spending
effectively to fight HIV/AIDS."

  The report also argues that the IMF policies make it more difficult for
countries to retain critically-important health care workers, as a result of
the IMF's caps on the amount of money countries can spend for public health
sector employees.

  The low-inflation targets set by the IMF lead directly to limits on the
national budgets of poor countries, which lead to ceilings on national
health budgets. Most poor countries would like to significantly increase
spending on fighting AIDS, says Joanne Carter, Legislative Director of
RESULTS Educational Fund, a US-based citizens lobby group that focuses on
combating tuberculosis and other diseases of poverty in developing
countries.  But they have given up trying to fight against the IMF because
they know that they must comply with IMF loans just to keep their access to
the current levels of foreign aid they are already receiving.  If you go
against the IMF, you risk getting cut-off from all other sources of foreign
aid.

   Speaking at the World Bank in November 2003, UNAIDS Executive Director
Peter Piot stated, When I hear that countries are choosing to comply with
the&[budget] ceilings at the expense of adequately funding AIDS programs, it
strikes me that someone isn t looking hard enough for sound alternatives.

  The report notes that because the IMF is basically unaccountable to
citizens of any one country, citizens must call on their own governments to
ensure that the decisions they make on the IMF Board of Executive Directors
do not undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS.  The four groups call on AIDS
activists and health professionals concerned with combating the spread of
HIV/AIDS to address this issue of ceilings on public spending in developing
countries with their own Finance Ministries or Treasury Departments, which
dispatch representatives to the IMF Executive Board.  Citizens should call
for their own governments to take steps at the IMF board to change the
low-inflation targets that are conditions in IMF loans that unnecessarily
constrain health spending in countries with AIDS emergencies, said co-author
Adam Taylor, founder of the US university-based Student Global AIDS
Campaign.

  The report highlights that citizens of the seven wealthiest,
industrialized countries (G7), whose governments have the most influence on
the IMF Executive Board, have a special obligation to call on their Finance
Ministries or Treasury Departments to take immediate action on the issue.
Paul Zeitz of Global AIDS Alliance said, US citizens have the biggest
responsibility to call on the US Treasury Department to take immediate steps
at the IMF to abolish the IMF s low-inflation targets that are limiting
spending on HIV/AIDS in the world s poorest countries.  The US Treasury
Department must act now if the countries are to be enabled to significantly
increase their own spending and accept more foreign aid in order to scale-up
the fight against HIV/AIDS.

  The policy briefing will be released at a special Teach-In for AIDS
Activists and NGOs at the 4th Floor offices of the UN Foundation at 1225
Connecticut Avenue NW Washington DC on Thursday evening September 30th from
5-7pm.  Media are welcome to attend and pose questions.


  Rick Rowden, ActionAid International USA   RickR at actionaidusa.org

  Joanne Carter, RESULTS Educational Fund   carter at results.org

  Paul Zeitz, Global AIDS Alliance  pzeitz at globalaidsalliance.org

  Adam Taylor, Student Global AIDS Campaign   adamrtaylorgj at yahoo.com

  Click here for the policy briefing:
http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf



  WGNRR Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights

  RMMDR Red Mundial de Mujeres por los Derechos Reproductivos

  RMFDR Réseau Mondial des Femmes pour les Droits sur la Reproduction

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