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12 July 2002
While international organisations and governments are vying to position
themselves as 'global leaders' in the fight against AIDS, the international
AIDS conference in Barcelona has revealed faith-based groups are positioned
where it really counts - on the ground.
Ken Casey, the leader of World Vision's Hope Initiative, which focuses
on HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy, says churches are on the front
line in prevention and education, acceptance and care, helping the dying
and providing for orphans.
"World Vision has already begun to help faith communities develop
their role, and we are learning from them in the areas where local congregations
have already had tremendous success.
"All over Africa we find pastors and volunteers who are performing
a Herculean task in caring for the sick and the orphans, and supporting
communities that have been shaken to the core by the horror that has come
among them."
In contrast, UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot has been hammering
home one message during the conference - leaders need to do more to keep
their promises in relation to the fight against AIDS.
"The difference between this conference and previous conferences
is that AIDS is now a global political issue, and that's where it should
be.
"Top politicians have, in the past, made a lot of very great speeches,
but after the conferences were over they haven't been translated into
action. That can't be allowed to continue. My theme this week is 'Keeping
The Promise'," he said.
AIDS has caused life expectancy to plummet in many African countries,
despite a decade of gains in other development fields. In Botswana life
expectancy has fallen to 39, from 72; in Zimbabwe, where an average person
would live to 69 without AIDS, they will now only reach 40. All sub-Saharan
African nations are seeing an average reduction in life expectancy of
10 to 20 years, and by 2010 it will be worse. A Botswanan average will
be 27 years by then; a Namibian or Zambian 34; a Swazi 33.
As well as reducing age expectancy, Ken Casey says the impact on children
has been devastating.
"Every set of statistics you see here, every report that is being
released, shows the devastation that is being caused among young people
in the developing nations of the world," he said today.
"Yet even the hardest-hitting of speeches and presentations we are
hearing [at the conference] and seeing pays only the barest attention
to how we might deal with 40 million more orphans and a hundred million
other vulnerable children in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America."
Mr Casey says World Vision's Hope strategy emphasises the needs of children.
"In many ways, with our peers, with scientists, with the UN and
with the media, it's good that we are here at Barcelona to be a part of
giving a voice to a huge and important population who can easily be neglected."
Nearly 15,000 scientists and clinicians, health care workers, public
health agents, people living with AIDS, politicians, NGOs and journalists
are now gathered in the Catalunian city of Barcelona, on the Spanish coast.
It's a significant number - roughly the same number are calculated to
get infected by HIV around the world each day. The conference programme
is packed with plenary sessions, satellite events, seminars, learning
sessions, poster presentations, cultural events and activist group meetings.
The 14th International AIDS conference finishes on July 12.
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