1 December is World AIDS Day, dedicated to the fight against the global epidemic. The theme for this year is accountability. The campaign’s slogan is “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.” The World AIDS Campaign and its partners call on all governmental leaders to be accountable for the promises they have made, to set the targets necessary to reach universal access to care, treatment and support, and to make all the necessary resources available to order to overcome the AIDS pandemic.

Accountability is all the more critical as governments are expected to set their national targets by the end of 2006, as called for by the United Nations review of the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. However, there is some confusion about how this process is moving forwards. Civil society organizations, which would be enthusiastic and committed partners in setting targets and implementing efforts where appropriate, are still not being fully included in national target setting processes. 

According to UNAIDS, an estimated 38.6 million adults and children were living with HIV at the end of 2005. Approximately 4.1 million became newly infected with HIV and 2.8 million died due to AIDS-related illnesses. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic. But no country is unaffected, and incidence rates are rising in a number of developed countries.

AIDS and rural poverty

AIDS is a crisis with severe socio-economic repercussions, particularly in rural areas of developing countries. Poverty is a root cause of most HIV infections in rural areas, but poverty is also aggravated by the impact of HIV/AIDS. AIDS is a social disease that is especially prevalent in rural areas characterized by fragile economies, high rates of migration and lack of social power of women.

AIDS is a serious obstacle to development. It strikes young adults just as they are about to enter their most productive years. It also robs children of their parents or forces them to drop out of school, leaving a generation without care or education. Rural poverty deepens as families are forced to sell their assets to care for the sick and to compensate for lost income.

IFAD works in rural areas of developing countries to reduce the causes of the HIV/AIDS crisis and to build resilience to the impact of the disease. Recognizing that HIV/AIDS seriously affects agriculture and rural development, IFAD addresses the epidemic through its rural investment programmes. Increasingly, IFAD-funded projects are used as platforms from which to fight HIV/AIDS. This is particularly the case in Africa. But IFAD aims to eventually build HIV/AIDS prevention and coping strategies into all of its projects. The emphasis is on strengthening the capacity of communities to respond to the crisis. IFAD has developed an HIV/AIDS strategy to guide its operations in East and Southern Africa.

Source: IFAD