Solutions: A Gallery of Alternatives in Good Faith

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Solutions A Gallery of Alternatives in Good
Faith

• Emal Wahab, Peter Geissert, Maki Karakida, Nadia
  Alazri

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Recommendation 1 Trade, Debt, and Aid

• Trade Cancel Agricultural Subsidies
• Expansion of the Jubilee Coalition to focus on
  agriculture.
• Debt Cancel the 200 billion in African debt
• 40 billion debt cancellation at Gleneagles is a
  modest start
• Aid Current aid targets too Low
• Doubling aid from 25 billions to 50
  billions/year by 2010 not sufficient
• HIV/AIDS alone will require 22 billions/year
• Year by year accounting of ODA from each G8
  country
• Increase G8 aid to Africa by 50 billion/year by
  2010
• Western countries must live up to the commitment
  of contributing 0.7 of GNP

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Recommendation 2 Plight of Women

• Guarantee 50/50 split in employment by 2015
• Create an international agency on behalf of women
• Amalgamation of the UN Development Fund for Women
  (UNIFEM), the UN Division for the Advancement of
  Women (DAW), UN Population Fund (UNFPA) into one
  UN agency
• Funded to a similar level as UNICEF something
  close to 2 billion/year
• If formation resisted by member states, it should
  be created by outside NGOs and then folded in
  later
• Potential difference maker
• Empower women leaders to network, plan, share
  with colleagues in other countries
• Transform community activism into a mass movement

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Recommendation 3 3 by 5

• Must maintain momentum around Three by Five
  WHO's design to put 3 million people in treatment
  by the end of 2005
• 3 by 5 challenged governments, corporations, and
  the UN to scale up access to antiretroviral
  therapy (who.int)
• Although goal was not reached by 2005, nearly
  1.5 million people received treatment by 2005 and
  nearly 3 million by 2006. This proves that
  setting goals is one of the best strategies.
• 3 by 5 was launched in 2003 and between then and
  2005, the number of people receiving
  antiretroviral treatment increased by 800 in
  sub-Saharan Africa
• Has raised the importance of prevention
• Helped deem the term Universal treatment

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Recommendation 4 Global Fund

• G8 Summit will have to confront the shortfall in
  revenue for the Global Fund (GF) to fight AIDS,
  TB and Malaria.
• Global Fund was created in 2002 to fight AIDS, TB
  and Malaria. By 2005, GF was operating in 127
  countries however, by 2010 approved funding for
  21.7 billion for more than 600 programs in 150
  countries (theglobalfund.org).
• No other international financial institution that
  deals with AIDS in so many diverse countries and
  that supports grass-roots
• U.S. is the most serious obstacle by offering
  400-600 million when it should be closer to
  1.2 billion
• Lewis proposes that the private sector needs to
  play a larger role and terms it their corporate
  social responsibility
• Lewis proposes that self-selected members of the
  Global Coalition on HIV/AIDS contribute 0.7 of
  pre-tax profits to the GF to fight AIDS, TB and
  Malaria

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Recommendation 5 Feed the Hungry

• There is greater reluctance to provide funding
  for food, which makes the MDG goal to cut hunger
  in half by 2015 less likely to occur
• Lewis argues that while funding for AIDS can be
  difficult due whether to spend finances on
  prevention, treatment or care, providing food
  should be simple.
• World Food Programme (WFP) has been supportive of
  orphans in child-headed households and groups
  living with AIDS
• School feeding programs guarantees one solid
  meal a day to impoverished communities. Without
  this program, many children would starve.
• Lewis proposes that a new and definitive program
  should be available for the purchase of food
  whenever needed
• UN's Food and Agriculture Organization could play
  a role by focusing on small agricultural
  developments

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Recommendation 6 Social Change

• Millennium Development Goals (MDGS)
• Rebuild health care, education, transportation,
  communications, nutrition, water, sanitation, and
  agriculture
• Next step collaborating with government to
  reach socioeconomic terrain of each African
  country

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Recommendation 7 Preventive Technologies

• Vaccines
• Help end millions of new infections
• 10 or more years away virus mutation
• Microbicides
• Prevent transmission of the virus
• Having access is the key (advance preparation is
  underway)
• Educate vast numbers of rural women about how to
  use a microbicides
• Increase the distribution of vaccines for awaited
  people
• More trials should have in place for the better
  prospects for discovery

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Recommendation 8 Schools

• School fees and other related cost should be
  abolished
• The entire onus should be on the World Bank and
  the IMF
•  
• Going to school fundamental, urgent human
  rights for every child
• Schools can contribute to MDGS by
• Being natural centers for immunization,
  deworming, lunch programs, and the distribution
  of malarial bed-nets
• a water point for the village and a model for a
  community garden

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Recommendation 9 Orphans

• There is no equivalent historical precedent for
  the magnitude of the orphan crisis.
• Two generations of children are growing up
  without parents.
• Disorganized response.
• The Burden is falling on women in communities,
  particularly grandmothers.
• Suggestions
• Creation of a social security scheme to provide
  for the survival of grandmothers caring for
  orphaned children.
• Establish a system of compensation, and expand
  number of caregivers.

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Human Capacity

• Capacity building is a misnomer
• Need for Capacity Replacement
• Suggestions
• UN must step into a leadership vacuum
• Development of a plan to address human capacity
• Training

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Matters of Controversy

• Within the UN there is significant self
  censorship. There is a political price to be
  paid for leveling criticism at other countries.
  The magnitude of the epidemic necessitates
  setting aside this diplomatic propriety.
• The UN must be comfortable pointing out when
  member nations' efforts are compromised by
  political, economic, or moralistic stances.
• The UN must broker agreements that engage the
  governments of African nations in the fight
  against AIDS, and hold them accountable when
  their actions do not measure up to their
  commitments.
• Silence is complicity.

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Discussion Questions

• Do you think these goals are too general to be
  achieved or should they be more specific?
• What are the advantages/disadvantages to using
  school facilities as part of the MDGs?
• How can we make western countries live up to the
  commitment of contributing 0.7 of GNP?
• How can the United States be given incentives to
  provide more to the Global Fund?

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References

• The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and
  Malaria (2010). About the global fund. Retrieved
  from http//www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/?lange
  n
• World Health Organization (2006). Progress on
  global access to antiretroviral therapy A report
  on 3 by 5 and beyond. Retrieved from
  http//www.who.int/hiv/fullreport_en_highres.pdf