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Commemoration of World AIDS Day 2006

Opening Remarks By
Ursula Schäfer-Preuss
Vice President, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development
Asian Development Bank

1 December 2006
ADB Headquarters, Mandaluyong City

Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

This is the third year that ADB is joining the global community to commemorate World AIDS Day. Thank you for being with us this morning.

In June this year, the Leaders of Asia and the Pacific joined their peers at the United Nations General Assembly 2006 High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York (31 May-2 June) to reinvigorate the fight against AIDS when they committed to a range of vital actions. Among them, the UN-Declaration¹ promotes gender equality -- recognizing that women now represent 50% of people living with HIV worldwide -- stresses the need to respect the full rights of people living with HIV and AIDS, and calls for the protection of vulnerable groups that include young people, sex workers, injecting drug users, and men having sex with men.

More recently, in Hanoi, at the 14th APEC meeting, the Asia Pacific leaders reconfirmed their commitment to fight HIV/AIDS. They agreed to enhance their cooperation, and to expand efforts towards combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, ensuring the protection of the rights of those living with the disease; and achieving the United Nations goal of Universal Access to comprehensive programs of prevention, treatment, care, and support by 2010.

It is our task to support this regional commitment expressed in both Declarations. We must assist our leaders to meet their commitments and we in turn will be accountable to support them in fulfilling those promises.

The need for renewed efforts is readily evident. While the increasing number of HIV infections is primarily due to large increases in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, the epidemic in Asia and the Pacific is spreading elsewhere as well. The latest estimates show that some 8.3 million people were living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific at the end of 2005. UNAIDS estimates that approximately 930,000 people have been newly infected in 2005, while the disease claimed an estimated 600,000 lives. Two-thirds of people with HIV in Asia live in India.

Let me remind you of the ADB and UNAIDS study² published in 2004, indicating that an additional 10 million people would be infected by 2010 if we do not act rapidly and vigorously. Regretfully, in 2006, we do not see yet significant changes in the trend of the epidemic.

Furthermore, the epidemics in Central Asia and Eastern Europe continue to grow. The number of people living with HIV in this region was 1.6 million in 2005 - an increase of almost twenty-fold in less than ten years. The overwhelming majority of people living with HIV in this region are young. The patterns of the epidemics are changing in several countries, with sexually transmitted HIV cases comprising a growing share of new diagnosis. Increasing numbers of women are being infected, many of them acquiring HIV from male partners who became infected when injecting drugs. Understanding the drivers of the epidemic, such as inequality between men and women, is absolutely fundamental to a successful long-term response to AIDS.³

The HIV epidemic remains concentrated among people in high risk groups, that is, injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, and men who have sex with men. However, there are worrying signs that HIV is more rapidly spreading into the general population. The scenarios pictured for this region are telling us to ACT NOW if we want to change the course of the epidemic. The window of opportunity to halt the spread of HIV and AIDS still exists, but we need strong leadership and commitment among all stakeholders, including those of us gathered here today.

We cannot afford to stand watching from a distance, putting at risk the next generations due to our inaction.

What does this mean for ADB? There is strong evidence linking the spread of HIV to new roads and construction sites, putting both female and male workers at high risk of infection because of lengthy stays away from home. Infrastructure, including transport, water, urban and rural development is at the center of ADB's business, and while the benefits of such infrastructure development are clear and indispensable, we also have the responsibility to avoid or mitigate any potential adverse impacts created by the projects and programs supported by ADB. We must ensure that no ADB-funded activities contribute to the epidemic by failing to take adequate precautions in project design and implementation. The planning, implementation, and monitoring in particular of infrastructure projects and programs need to consider the HIV/AIDS risks.

During the World Aids Conference in Toronto earlier this year, ADB signed a JOINT INITIATIVE for mitigating the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Infrastructure Projects. ADB will be judged on how well it keeps this commitment, and also on how well we implement the programs provided in our HIV/AIDS strategy, including leadership support; capacity building; and targeted programs addressing the needs of the poor, the vulnerable, and high risk groups.

In 2007, we will undertake a staff survey, to better understand staff's awareness of HIV/AIDS issues. The target is to have a comprehensive HIV/AIDS workplace policy operational by the end of 2007, and also to incr ease staff's knowledge concerning effective interventions to prevent and mitigate the spread of HIV.

One of ADBs critical partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS is civil society. Reaching out to communities and families through NGOs has proven to be the most effective response to HIV/AIDS. Their ability to deliver HIV/AIDS services, such as prevention, care and support programs, particularly among the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations should not be underestimated. ADB is currently in the process of selecting a number of NGO projects for support in the region that will become operational in early 2007.

I very much welcome that we now have a fully functioning HIV/AIDS unit to support ADB's response to HIV/AIDS. I am convinced that we can, with our new team and all staff members in ADB strengthen the effectiveness of ADB and our developing member countries in fighting HIV/AIDS in the years to come.

Thank you.