[Press Kit]

36

African governments and
their development partners
are increasingly allocating
resources to social sectors.
Here Ethiopian children enjoy
a puppet show on health education and AIDS prevention.

countries advocated for accelerated
debt relief, particularly for Africa, at
their June 1999 summit in Cologne,
and there is clear agreement amongst
all creditors and most debtor governments that debt relief should be
strongly linked to poverty reduction.

The UN system, including UNICEF,
UNAIDS and key partners, must work
with governments to ensure that
the poverty-reduction plans linked
to debt relief include significant
contributions to the struggle against
HIV/AIDS, including service
provision for orphans and other
children affected by the pandemic.
5. Make HIV/AIDS a priority
in sector-wide approaches
to development
African governments and their development partners are increasingly
allocating resources to social sectors,
especially education, health and water
and sanitation, through the mechanism
of sector-wide approaches (SWAPs)
or sectoral investment plans (SIPs). In
these schemes, governments, in consultation with partners, define objectives
and strategies for sectoral support,
and all parties apply their resources to
this common plan or strategy rather
than carrying out independent projects.
World Bank sectoral lending is an
important part of this sector-wide
approach in many African countries.
It is essential that social service needs
associated with HIV/AIDS, including
those of greatest relevance to orphans,
be accorded high priority in sectorwide approaches. This prioritization
of HIV/AIDS should be the focus of
advocacy and policy development
efforts of UNICEF and other UNAIDS
co-sponsoring agencies partaking in
sector-wide discussions and planning.