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MONTERREY,
Mexico -- While much discussion this week has
revolved around financial issues, such as taxes,
transparent
financial systems and embezzlement, it is often
easy to forget the grassroots issues that this
money will go to fund.
In
a world of often-overlooked issues such as water
and land fatigue, the issue of HIV/AIDS and health
funding-until recently marginalized-seems to have
the attention of the UN Secretary General and others.
As
former US President Jimmy Carter pointed
out at the
International Conference on Financing
for Development, "The World Bank, and
the IMF gave most of their loans in years past
to build grandiose projects-big power dams,
four-lane highways, convention centers and
so forth-hoping to attract foreign investment.
And that's where a lot of the waste and corruption
was going on. But when you get down to the
allocation of funds for health, in a particular
disease whether it's malaria, or tuberculosis
or AIDS, if politicians begin to steal that
money they are much more likely to get caught.
And the people will rise up and demand that
the waste be stopped."
Response time is crucial in the case of a
health pandemic like HIV/AIDS, and some experts
say the problem has grown to a proportion the
cost of which may not be known for generations.
"We've talked a lot this week about partnerships," said
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Harvard University
and development expert, said. "Partnerships
between the developed and developing world,
well you aren't going to have much of a partnership
if your partner is dead." Representatives
of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS) are at the conference, watching with
hope and wondering if any of the pledged money
will come to them-although the details of the
US and European pledges will not be known for
months, and the money may not be seen for years.
Although public and private donors alike helped
raise $2 billion for UN Secretary General Kofi
A. Annan's Global Fund to Fight AIDS, advocates
say much more is needed.
"So if you look at it broadly, our estimate
is that it will be in the range of $7 to $10
billion per year. That includes private resources,
and national resources," said Marika Fahlen,
UNAIDS Director of Social Mobilization and
strategic Information, in an interview with
The Earth Times. "There is about $2 billion
now. This is the need for resources; at the
moment a large part of the money comes from
the pockets of those infected, or from their
families. The $7 to $10 billion is the UNAIDS
estimate from 2000. More recently, Jeffrey
Sachs estimated that $14 billion per year would
be required. He looked a little farther ahead
than we did."
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is not mentioned in
the Monterrey consensus, but Fahlen hopes that
it will be mentioned in whatever form the final
document may take.
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