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HIV and AIDS is, arguably, the world’s most complex and as yet, incurable disease. Its effects are devastating on individuals, communities and nations. Since the start of the epidemic, an estimated 60 million people have been infected with HIV, of whom some 20 million have died.
HIV and AIDS is one of the leading causes of mortality in Southern Africa, disproportionately affecting young people and women, thwarting development and posing serious challenges to national and regional security. By the end of 2003, the number of AIDS- related deaths in Southern Africa was estimated to be just fewer than 10.1 million. In most countries of the region life expectancy has declined sharply to below 40 years of age. The epidemic has orphaned approximately 6.6 million children in the region.
The spread of HIV infection is driven by many common root causes, including gender inequality, poverty and the social marginalization of the most vulnerable populations and groups. Twenty years into the pandemic, there is now ample evidence for the complex linkages between HIV and AIDS and development: development gaps increase people’s susceptibility to HIV transmission and their vulnerability to the impact of AIDS; inversely, the epidemic itself hampers or even reverses development progress so as to pose a major obstacle to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Recognising that these development challenges are interconnected means, for example, that poverty reduction strategies need to take into account how poverty enhances vulnerability to HIV infection; how HIV/AIDS enhances poverty and how this is experienced differently by boys and girls, men and women. Interventions are required that combine civil and political and socio-economic rights such as: the right to non-discrimination; the right to life; the right to timely and appropriate health care; the right to liberty and security of person; the right to privacy; the right to work, etc. In addition programmes need to focus on the gender dimension of the pandemic. This includes understanding the nature and extent of vulnerability to HIV infection of women, girls, men and boys and the gender-related barriers to HIV prevention including lack of power, resources, skills and information, and putting the rights of women and girls central to programmatic responses aimed at curbing HIV spread.
Massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, along with serious and determined political will are required to reverse the AIDS death toll in the region. SARO, along with other United Nations agencies, supports HIV and AIDS programmes in the region so as to contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, by mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS and its negative consequences on the region’s development efforts.
RESOURCES
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