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Guyana needs more money for AIDS fight, minister tells UNGASS+5
Local human rights group says review needed

Guyana will need more money if its 2006-2010 HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan is to be implemented.

Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy told the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS+5) on HIVAIDS, which concluded in New York June 2, that Guyana needs continuous monetary support for its programme expansion and to achieve UNGASS goals and targets.

But the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) disagrees, arguing that Guyana has received “unprecedented amounts” of funding from a wide range of international donors.

Failure in the country’s AIDS fight lies elsewhere, the GHRA said, and strongly suggested that the UNGASS should have been the occasion for, “…a major review and investigation” of Guyana’s response to HIV.

The GHRA found the recently released UNAIDS global report on HIV worrying as, among other things, it said, “serious epidemics have been observed in urban areas,” in Guyana . The report concluded that “high HIV infection levels among men and women seeking treatment for other sexually transmitted diseases and the rising trend in officially reported HIV infections underscore the need to improve Guyana ’s AIDS response.”

Minister Ramsammy would have told his colleagues and other representatives at the UNGASS that limited human resource capacity at the national and regional levels, timely procurement of drugs and commodities and limited storage and nascent distribution networks are some of the challenges faced by the country in achieving its goals.

The UNAIDS report said that while expanded counselling and testing services along with the provision of anti-retroviral regimens have reduced mother-to-child transmission of HIV in some countries, such as the Bahamas , evidence of similar progress is not yet visible in Guyana .

But Guyana is not the only country to have failed in reaching some of the UNGASS five-year targets. According to a press release, civil society organisations from around the world have reported at the UNGASS that governments have failed to meet most of their targets.

The groups warned that there was a serious risk that the high-level UN meeting, which was convened primarily to review the progress of countries and set new targets, could have ended in failure.

“Five years since the 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV, governments have failed to meet most of their targets for 2005, and are failing to set new and ambitious targets,” the release from the groups said.

The groups felt governments were playing “political games” at the meeting instead of setting a clear path to address the new realities and needs in the response to AIDS up to 2010.

But at the end of the day governments came up with a 52-point political declaration which among other things said they noted with alarm that the world is facing an unprecedented human catastrophe and that, “…a quarter of century into the pandemic, AIDS has inflicted immense suffering on countries and communities throughout the world, and more than 65 million people have been infected with HIV.” The governments also noted that more than 25 million people have died from the disease, 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, with millions more made vulnerable. Forty million people are currently living with HIV and troubling more than 95 per cent of them live in developing countries, such as Guyana .

The governments recognise that some $20 billion to $23 billion is needed by 2010 to support rapidly scaled-up AIDS responses in low and middle-income countries. The governments then committed to take measures to ensure that additional and sufficient resources are made available from donor countries and also from national budgets and other national sources.

“[We] commit to support and strengthen existing financial mechanisms, including the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, to support rapidly scaled-up AIDS responses in low and middle income countries and therefore commit to take measures to ensure that additional and sufficient resources are made available from donor countries and also from national budges and other national resources,” the governments said.

However, the final draft of the declaration was not without its problems as according to civil society representatives at the meeting, negotiation over the final declaration was marred by what they termed as some, “…governments’ ideological positions on HIV prevention, treatment and human rights.”

On the Guyana front GHRA feels that anxiety to be spending money at any cost had undermined the governance dimension of the fight against HIV/AIDS and marginalised the national policy as the coordinating framework.

“Government and donors prefer to reduce all governance issues to technical assistance and management,” the human rights group, which was represented at the UNGASS, said.

It noted that in such a process the government avoids engaging with independent civil organisations and donor organisations are the only non-government influence on decision-making. As a result instead of a coherent national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS the country now has a multiplicity of donor-driven projects, each responding to their own values and priorities implemented by an equally abundant range of sports clubs, NGOs, religious bodies and the business community.

“While every week seems to bring a new programme and a new donor, this riot of unfocused resources is making little headway in the areas of stigma and discrimination and other difficult issues,” the group concluded.

According to the GHRA, an array of international funders means governments can readily turn to an alternative source rather than accept unwelcome conditions. On the other hand, donors, anxious to spend their money, are unwilling to incur official displeasure.

“…All concerned avoid contentious issues and opt for the provision of technical services, more rewarding in themselves for organisations than voicing unpopular opinions and unwelcome questions,” GHRA stated.

HIV/AIDS is the second leading cause of death in Guyana , according to Secretary to the Presidential Commission on HIV/AIDS, Dr Frank Anthony, who recently reported that some 18,000 persons are living with HIV/AIDS in Guyana .

Dr Ramsammy told UNGASS that the response by the government and other key stakeholders to contain the epidemic in Guyana is targeted and a number of programmes within the various programme areas are being implemented.

Guyana ranks as the country with the second highest HIV/AIDS population in the Caribbean. Haiti has the highest.