Catalog

United Against a Silent Enemy
ADB Review [ August 2005 ]

UNAIDS and ADB are strengthening their joint response to one of the greatest challenges of our time: HIV/AIDS

By Graham Dwyer, (gdwyer@adb.org)
External Relations Specialist

HIV/AIDS poses one of the greatest challenges of our time. That was the message of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director, Peter Piot, to the media and Asian Development Bank (ADB) personnel during a visit to ADB headquarters in Manila in February.

Mr. Piot spoke following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two organizations to strengthen the HIV/AIDS response in Asia and the Pacific. Signing the MOU with Mr. Piot was ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda.

“HIV/AIDS is a human tragedy and a real and growing threat to the economic prosperity of the Asia and Pacific region,” Mr. Kuroda said at the MOU signing ceremony.

“For example, an average of 5.6 million people will be impoverished by HIV/AIDS every year between now and 2015 in just four of our regional member countries, in effect negating a portion of the poverty reduction efforts in these countries,” Mr. Kuroda said.

“As a broad-based development institution focused on poverty alleviation, ADB cannot ignore this threat, nor can we simply leave it to others to address.”

As part of the MOU, UNAIDS and ADB will work together to engage political leaders and various sectors in the fight against HIV/AIDS, strengthen national capacity to scale up the HIV/AIDS response, and generate additional funds for HIV/AIDS in the region.

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An Issue of the Globalized World

Mr. Piot said that since HIV/AIDS was first discovered less than 25 years ago, some 70 million people worldwide have become infected, and the disease is now entering a new phase making it “truly an issue of our globalized world.”

He said that besides the connectivity, which leaves no region untouched, another trend in the disease is the feminization of the epidemic, with more than 50% of those now becoming newly infected being women. There needs to be real momentum on three fronts, he said: leadership, financial commitment, and what he called “momentum of evidence.”

“This is a problem with a solution,” Mr. Piot said. “This is not a hopeless thing.” He cited the case of Thailand, where in the early 1990s, 140,000 people were becoming infected every year compared with only 20,000 now.

However, HIV/AIDS continues to spread in the region with more than 1.2 million people newly infected last year alone, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Asia and Pacific region to 8.2 million. This makes the region the second largest in terms of number of people living with HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa with 25.4 million.

“If Asia fails to act promptly, more adults will become infected by HIV in this region than in sub-Saharan Africa,” ADB Vice-President Geert van der Linden said.

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Time for Urgent Action

According to a joint UNAIDS-ADB report published last year, an additional 10 million people from Asia and the Pacific alone could be infected with HIV/AIDS by the end of the decade if urgent action is not taken to scale up HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs.

It could cost the region $17.5 billion annually, and millions would be thrown into poverty. Currently, the coverage rate for prevention and care services in the region is only 20%.

“Scaling up HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs is essential to keeping people healthy and working toward achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by 50% by 2015,” Mr. van der Linden added.

In 2004, national governments and donors spent $200 million on HIV/AIDS in the region, compared with the $1.5 billion that was required. An estimated $5 billion is needed annually by 2007 to scale up prevention, care, and treatment programs.

“As a leading financial institution in the region, ADB is committed to closing the resource gap by providing eligible countries with grants to fight AIDS,” said Mr. van der Linden.

ADB shareholders have indicated their concern about the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region and have decided to allocate 2% of total Asian Development Fund resources (or $140 million) as grants to fight HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.

At the MOU signing, Mr. Piot praised ADB for its renewed commitment. “As AIDS becomes increasingly part of our lives, the response to the epidemic should be part of the core business of every institution dedicated to poverty alleviation and economic and social development,” he said. “In Asia and the Pacific, ADB is stepping up to the responsibility and taking a leading role.”

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