Ministerial Technical Meeting of the Extraordinary Abuja Summit on HIV/AIDS and other Infectious Diseases

Statement

by K. Y. Amoako,
Executive Secretary of ECA
Abuja, 24 April 2001

Mr. Chairman,
Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary-General of the OAU,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for giving the Economic Commission for Africa the opportunity to address this auspicious meeting. Let me first of all convey to you warm greetings from K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of ECA. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for their warm hospitality, as well as for proposing that a Summit on HIV/AIDS and other related infectious diseases be held. By taking such a step, President Olusegun Obasanjo has once again demonstrated his and Nigeria's sustained commitment to addressing issues that are critical to Africa's development.

I am pleased to note that this Summit, unlike formal summits of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), allows for participation by civil society and other key stakeholders. In this regard, I would like to recognise all participants living with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, for their courageous and unrelenting campaign to fight not just for themselves, but also for all of Africa. You represent the strongest of leadership role models, and we salute you.

There is now absolutely no doubt that HIV/AIDS is more than simply another disease. To banish HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases -- the so-called diseases of poverty -- from our continent, we have no choice but to develop a new way of doing business. Abuja therefore constitutes an important opportunity to scale up commitment to African-owned responses.

Many meetings, conferences and other gatherings on HIV/AIDS have taken place in recent years. The most recent was the African Development Forum in December 2000. Some you gathered here today may have been in Addis Ababa for ADF 2000, or followed the deliberations and outcomes via the media.

More than 1,500 African leaders and policy makers, private sector and development partner representatives, people living with HIV/AIDS and other civil society representatives met to come up with concrete strategies on how to galvanize leadership at all levels of society in upscaling the response to HIV/AIDS. Our focus was squarely on leadership. The Consensus and Plan of Action that emanated from ADF 2000 provides a clear road map as to how different levels of leadership in Africa should forge ahead to fight HIV/AIDS.

In light of what I have just outlined, this meeting represents an important event for ECA. We see it as critical to securing and sustaining the commitment of Africa's leaders at the highest possible level. We very much hope that Abuja will be the place where our leaders articulate how they will lead the fight in their own countries.

Later today, we will be presenting the outcomes of ADF 2000 in some detail. Nevertheless, let me share you with some key highlights of the ADF 2000 'African Consensus and Plan of Action: Leadership to Overcome HIV/AIDS'. There are five levels of commitment: personal, community, national, regional and international.

Among other things, the Consensus states that:

• Every individual must personally break the silence around the norms and practices that fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Each person should regard themselves as affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

• People living with HIV/AIDS stand at the centre of any community efforts to overcome the pandemic. Their rights must be respected in full and their leadership potential recognized.

• National leaders have a responsibility to create the conditions for community mobilization. Before seeking external support, they should first and foremost mobilize domestic resources.

• A continental strategy for the essential and comprehensive care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS is needed, including a determined pan-African approach to the affordability of drugs.

• The international community should mobilize the necessary resources to enable Africa to overcome the pandemic. Wherever possible, assistance should be in the form of grants, not loans. Addressing the problem of the cost and accessibility of drugs, especially anti-retrovirals and drugs to treat opportunistic infections, should be a priority.

Mr. Chairman

We cannot defeat HIV/AIDS unless we work together. It is in this spirit of partnership, and towards ensuring continuity, that we at ECA have been working closely with the OAU, UNAIDS and other Summit partners, on both the Technical and Steering Committees.

All along, our aim has been to ensure that in Abuja, Africa's leadership will articulate a common position that Africa can take forward to subsequent forums - among them the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, and the UN General Assembly Special Session on children.

We strongly believe that the outcomes of ADF 2000 provide key elements of such position. And just as ADF 2000 debated and endorsed existing mechanisms and modalities for partnership, we want to stress the need to work with what is already on the ground. We can build on what we have.

One such mechanism is the International Partnership Against AIDS (IPAA), which the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan officially launched during ADF 2000 as "the focus for a new spirit of co-operation in building the response to AIDS". If we are to capitalize on the IPAA as an indication of the importance the international community attaches to Africa and to the fight against HIV/AIDS, then we need to mainstream it as an integral part of our response. We also need to work through existing country-level mechanisms, such as the national HIV/AIDS machineries, the UN country theme groups and the resident co-ordinators system.

Mr. Chairman,

We at ECA have committed ourselves to staying on top of the fight against HIV/AIDS. After Abuja we plan to establish a Task Force with OAU, UNAIDS, UNDP and UNICEF and others organizations to monitor closely the implementation of the ADF Consensus and the Abuja Plan of Action We are also mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into all of our socio-economic policy analysis. We will continue to use ECA conferences of ministers of finances and planning, as well as other means at our disposal, to ensure that the fight against HIV/AIDS is kept at the forefront of the development agenda.

Above all we want to leave this Summit with a strong African position on fighting HIV/AIDS, TB and other related infectious diseases. History will judge us poorly if we emerge with anything less than the strongest possible conviction, commitment and plans to banish these scourges from our continent once and for all.

I thank you for your kind attention.