Religious Groups Fighting HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Africa Call for G7 Funds

The Universal Evangelistic Ministries (UEM) has launched its educational campaign to slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS pandemic in Liberia in west Africa.

During the campaign, the UEM team leader promoted the UEM AIDS education programme to youth and challenged them to apply the knowledge gained through the programme to their lives in order to a live long and healthy life.

In many countries AIDS is at the top of the list of causes of death, and Africa is facing the struggle of the pandemic with an increasing number of infected people. For example, AIDS has been the leading cause of death in South Africa accounting for a huge 30% at national level, according to a survey provided by Medical Research Council. According to the report, the statistics are for year 2000, and the number of deaths due to AIDS could even have increased over past few years.

The situation has become a great concern of many international initiatives that aim to stop the spread of the disease. However, to carry out many of these initiatives funding is needed - and this has become another major worry in tackling the spread of the virus. Paul Zeitz from Global AIDS Alliance comments: "There's an urgent crisis at the global level and it is a crisis of funding."

Also, U.N. officials say the fight against the disease is endangered by a shortage of funds. The U.N. General Assembly meeting is to be held 2-3 June 2005 and the situation of the battle against the HIV/AIDS will be discussed.

Recourses in the last year reached US$6.1 billion, however, the money required for future works has been predicted by UNAIDS, an organisation leading the fight, at around US$12 billions. This amount will be needed for this year to provide necessary help. However, funds are not expected to rise, leaving the situation unresolved and a shortfall of around US$6 billions will occur.

Regions that will be influenced the most by this insufficient funding are the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease is spreading at a rapid pace. People involved in this fight are indignant by the indifference of the leaders of rich countries, who have the power to solve the shortage of the funds.

Stephen Lewis, the U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS for Africa told to IPS: "It's such an obscenity and a mortifying international indignity that we should be struggling for relatively small amounts of money to save the lives of millions of people when we are now spending a trillion dollars on armaments and about 300 billion dollars on Afghanistan and Iraq,"

"We are only talking of (relatively small) sums of money, a maximum of about $20 billion by 2007, to save several millions of lives. There is something dreadfully out of whack," he added.

His voice of criticism is not the only one; Ann-Louise Colgan of advocacy group Africa Action shared his opinion: "Estimates of funding needed to turn the tide of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa and globally, actually are very modest when compared to the vast resources devoted to military expenditure by the world's richest countries.

Major donors supporting the fight are United States, the European Union and Japan, but Zeitz described them as "stingy"

According to Lewis, the change of the situation depends on the meeting of Group of Seven (G-7) - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Italy, going to be held in July and chaired by British Prime Minister Tony Blair: "It is really a question of whether Blair is going to be able to break through the G-7."

Those involved are looking at the upcoming meeting and hope that Blair will be able to persuade the members of G-7 to double their foreign aid, so the problem of their under-funded battle against the pandemic may be resolved not just in Africa, but at global level as well.