Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

and economic opportunities of young girls in rural areas not only reduces HIV transmission by providing alternatives to commercial sex, but also contributes to sustainable rural development and an improvement in the status of women.
Redirecting to AIDS existing project resources already programmed for social funds,
education and health projects, infrastructure and rural development is fully justified,
as the AIDS epidemic is undermining the very goals of these other investments.
Even though international financial assistance is not always necessary, international
assistance is crucial in many poor countries with limited public budgets.
Box 22. Debt relief
Some 95% of HIV-infected people live in developing countries, most of them in subSaharan Africa. And of the 39 so-called heavily indebted poor countries identified by
the World Bank, 32 are in Africa. Together they owe more than US$ 2.2 trillion in
debt.
Lack of funds for an expanded response to AIDS has been worsened by these high
levels of foreign indebtedness. Across Africa, national governments pay out four
times more in debt service than they spend on health and education.
In order to mount effective national AIDS prevention programmes, countries in Africa will
need to spend at least US$ 1-2 billion a year, far more than is currently being invested.
Sources that might be tapped for these additional resources include increased donations from the private sector and foundations, expansion and redirection of development
assistance, and reallocations within countries' own public budgets.
Relieving countries' debt burden is one of the more promising new approaches that
could increase the funds flowing into programmes to roll back the AIDS epidemic in
Africa. By relieving debt in the poorest countries - which, often, are the ones with the
highest HIV and AIDS figures - money now exported to service debt could be reinvested into AIDS prevention and care.
A major initiative to reduce debt over the next few years will take place under the
Highly Indebted Poor Country initiative (HIPC), supported by all the major creditor
governments from the OECD countries and implemented by the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund.
In a typical debt relief agreement, portions of a country's debt will be cancelled in
exchange for the debtor government's commitment to mobilize domestic resources
for specific purposes, such as a poverty eradication scheme or an intensified national
AIDS effort.
Such transactions have succeeded since the 1980s in the field of environmental conservation, for instance, by protecting rainforests from logging.

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