EPHA report on European Parliament event on HIV/AIDS treatment gap widening in Sub-Saharan Africa

Opening the event, Michael Cashman MEP welcomed the Working Group and warned against the discontinuation and reduction of HIV/AIDS treatment which could destroy the results achieved so far.

Ms. Mit Philips from Medicines Sans Frontieres presented a recently published report "No time to quit: HIV/AIDS treatment gap widening in Africa". She pointed out that while the HIV/AIDS epidemic remains a huge crisis, donors lose interest in prevention and treatment initiatives.

She claimed that one of the reasons for such proceedings might be the fact that HIV/AIDS had become a victim of its own ’success’: by having made significant progress in limiting the spread of the infection, having provided many of the infected on treatment, and loosening an emergency approach to HIV/AIDS actions. That would possibly cause a major donor retreat from scale-up and shift towards health systems strengthening (HSS) or MDG5, and less direct service delivery. On the role of the European Commission and the Member States, she asked to urge them to reconfirm commitments to universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, match these committments with available budgets, to fully support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), and to look for possible innovative mechanisms of financing to be chanelled to health initiatives (Financial Transaction Tax explicitly mentioned).

Ms. Marielle Hart of the Stop AIDS Alliance presented an overview of the European Union`s funding mechanisms for HIV/AIDS, including global geographic and thematic support, and contributions to the GFATM.

Geographic support covers the European Development Fund (EDF) which is the cooperation between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The previous (before 2006) budget lines relevant for health and AIDS were replaced by a single instrument, the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) on human and social development. Those changes clearly marked a shift from earmarked disease speciifc project financing towards budget support approaches (in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and stated in the European Consensus on Development) and now embrace four broad priority areas: health, education, gender equality and other aspects of human and social development.

Ms. Hart stated that much evidence points out that the current General Budget Support does not benefit health sectors which had a too low priority in the overwhelming majority of sub-saharan countries. Specific attention was brought towards the MDG Contracts initiative under the EDF (as additional budget support).

EPHA Related articles

 HIV/AIDS epidemic: situation in Europe in 2008
 Commission strategy for combating HIV/AIDS in the EU and neighbouring countries 2009-2013
 EPHA Briefing: EU Development Aid and Budget Support
 WHO adopts resolution on monitoring the achievement of health-related Millennium Development Goals.