CIAO DATE: 10/04

Talking Points on the Africa’s Right to Health Campaign

May 2003

Africa Policy Information Center

Talking Points on the Africa’s Right to Health Campaign

•The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the worst health crisis in human history and the greatest threat to human security that exists today. Defeating HIV/AIDS should be the top priority of the U.S. government. The pattern of the HIV/AIDS pandemic reveals a system of global apartheid, where access to wealth, health care and other human rights is linked to race and place.

•Africa is “ground zero” of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, home to more than 26 million of the 40 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. Africa has already lost more than 18 million people to HIV/AIDS.

•Africa’s health crisis is increasing poverty in Africa. It is taking a devastating toll on African economies and on local communities. Millions of Africa’s teachers and medical professionals are dying of HIV/AIDS.

•Africa’s women and children have been hit hardest by HIV/AIDS. More than half of those living with HIV/AIDS in Africa are women. HIV infection rates among young African women are often 3 to 5 times higher than among young men. One quarter of AIDS deaths in Africa occur among children. More than 12 million African children have already lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.

•Africa is at the center of the global HIV/AIDS crisis because poverty and inadequate access to health care have made its people most vulnerable. Because most of those dying of HIV/AIDS are African, racism has prevented an urgent international response.

•Africans are taking action against HIV/AIDS. African governments have committed to increase spending on health. Throughout Africa, communities and organizations are working to prevent new infections and to provide care to those living with HIV/AIDS.

•Globally, Black people are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. HIV infection rates are rising rapidly in the Caribbean and in communities of color here in the United States, especially among young people.

•African Americans represent just under 13% of the U.S. population but almost 38% of HIV/AIDS cases and more than half of new HIV infections.

•In Houston, the HIV/AIDS rate has risen dramatically in the past year, especially in the Black community. Mayor Lee Brown declared a “state of emergency” in 1999, and this has encouraged more people to get tested and to get treated. But infection rates among Blacks remain disproportionately high.

•A war on AIDS can be won. There are successful prevention and treatment programs all over the world. What are missing are the resources to support and expand these programs.

•Discrimination on the basic of race, gender, class and sexual orientation continues to undermine the battle against HIV/AIDS.

•A successful effort to defeat HIV/AIDS must begin at “ground zero” of the disease – in Africa, in the Caribbean and in communities of color here in the U.S.

•Only 1% of Africans living with HIV/AIDS have access to treatment that can improve their health and prolong their lives.

•The U.S. government supports the efforts of the big Drug companies to keep their profits high and to restrict African governments’ access to affordable medicines for their people. African governments should be free to use generic drugs and other means to provide essential medicines to their people who are living with HIV/AIDS.

•The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS is the key to defeating AIDS. It can provide essential support to prevention and treatment programs in Africa. But it is dependent on contributions from the U.S. and other rich countries. The U.S. has provided only a fraction of the $3.5 billion annual contribution that would be its fair share.

•African governments’ efforts to fight HIV/AIDS are undermined by the massive burden of foreign debt they owe to rich country governments (like the U.S. and Britain), and to international financial institutions (like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)), which are controlled by these governments.

•Each year, African governments must spend $15 billion repaying debts to these creditors. This takes money directly from spending on urgent priorities such as health care, education, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Most African governments spend more money on debt repayments than on health care for their people.

•Most of Africa’s debts are illegitimate. Many of the loans being repaid were made to prop up repressive and corrupt regimes during the Cold War. Other loans were made for failed development projects designed and pushed by creditors. These loans did not benefit Africa’s people and they should be canceled outright.

•The current debt relief program of the World Bank and IMF is called the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. This initiative has failed to resolve Africa’s debt crisis. African governments are still paying billions of dollars in debt repayments to rich country creditors every year.

•The World Bank and IMF are the largest creditors of African countries. They can afford to write off African countries’ debts, but they refuse to do so because they use these debts as leverage to control African economies. The U.S. is the most powerful shareholder at the World Bank and IMF.

•African efforts to fight HIV/AIDS cannot succeed while $15 billion per year is being taken out of Africa to pay the world’s richest countries. If the U.S. is serious about fighting AIDS in Africa, it should use its control at the World Bank and IMF to achieve debt cancellation for African countries.