AIDS Funds For Africa, Not Drug Firms

[goofyfish]

Providing drugs for people already infected doesn't really stem the tide of AIDs in a country like Botswana, where 40% of the population is HIV positive. It helps the drug companies far more than the Africans.

ADDIS ABABA, June 2 (Reuters) - South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Monday new funds pledged by rich countries to fight the continent's AIDS scourge must not go straight into the coffers of Western drug companies.

"The money must actually land on the continent. The bulk of the $15 billion...proposed by President Bush will land in the pockets of U.S. pharmaceutical companies," Manuel said.

Bush's pledge of $15 billion over five years to fight AIDS mainly in Africa and the Caribbean became law last week. But critics including European Commission President Romano Prodi question how much will actually be new cash, given that much of it may be distributed via existing bilateral schemes, with little left for a global fund to fight AIDS. (Full text here)

What is really needed is grass roots efforts in Africa to change the social factors contributing to the epidemic. There are some "hot spots" where simple education can go a long way - for example, teaching prostitutes to use condoms. But, of course, our money for education will go to missionaries who refuse to hand out condoms. Instead, they will preach the virtues of abstinence and Christ, and hand out bibles, with our tax dollars. The current administration still believes that the Christian agenda is not only best for the US, but for the whole world.

But much of the problem of AIDs results from even deeper roots in African society. In Botswana, for example, women are very much second class citizens - unlike anything in the US (were not just talking about a glass ceiling or the PGA, here). Powerful men in the community use their status for sex with powerless women. It is common for poor women to have sexual relationships for the sake of financial support - an apartment, or clothes for their kids, or food, whatever, with men who have several other liaisons. These aren't barroom prostitutes, just impoverished women with few alternatives for survival. But the sexual activity results in a high AIDs transmission rate. Sure, education helps - many of these people believe in black magic - your son got AIDs because your neighbor put a curse on you, not because of a virus. But changes in the social structure are required, so that women have alternatives to sex for making ends meet. There are some NGOs doing great work to provide jobs and education for women in Botswana. Skillshare International, a British outfit, for one. They sponsor a truly progressive set of programs like the one run through YWCA International in Maun, Botswana.

But very little money is likely to get down to the roots of problem. By far, most will be siphoned off by the drug companies, and corruption along the way. What does make it to the community level will go to Christian churches, not the progressive NGOs.

It really is a sham.

:m: Peace.

 

[Mystech]

Imagine Christian missionaries trying to educate a superstitious and ignorant people about how to avoid the dangers of a plague. . . it's really the blind leading the blind, isn't it?

I personally have never understood the whole abstinence thing, yes it is the only form of protection which works 100% of the time, but do you really think that your preaching is going to be able to overcome the combined sex drives of an entire nation? It's the same reason that passwords on porno sites don't work, no force in the world is more powerful than millions of horny young people. People are going to screw, face it, things would be best if everyone was taught about contraceptives.

 

[Cowboy]

I say the Americans keep their money and let the Africans solve their own problems.

As it has already been mentioned in this thread, many of the root causes of the AIDS epidemic are cultural. Culture must evolve rather than be changed by force for any lasting benefit. Throwing money at a cultural problem is even more pointless than flushing it down the toilet.