In December 2011, the 16th largest conference on HIV/AIDS in Africa, International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infection in Africa (ICASA) was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conference brought together more than 10,000 participants from 103 countries, including scientists, health workers, people living with HIV, policy makers, young people, civil society and non-governmental organizations, activists and government representatives to share and learn about successes, challenges and innovations in the prevention and control of HIV &AIDS.
As per the theme:
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Owning encompasses playing the lead role in HIV/AIDS and STI prevention, treatment, care and support at policy, strategy, programs, implementation as well as M&E levels by the primary stakeholders.
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Due to the current global financial and economic crises, HIV and AIDS programs are facing funding challenges. Such challenges may entail a sliding back from what has been gained thus far in Africa with respect to containing the pandemic, and mitigating its impacts. Therefore the theme is an alert call and an attempt to draw attention to the urgent need to sustain.
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Since there is huge gaps in prevention, treatment, care and support, sustaining what has been achieved is not enough. Therefore, we cannot think of sustaining without enhancing scaling up of all responses in order to address the critical gaps.
The conference recognized the role each person could play in the Global AIDS Response. However, more often than not, local leaders and the people who design, adopt and oversee the implementation of the laws in our country, the parliamentarians, are not proactively engaged.
Parliamentarians are supposed to reflect the voices and concerns of the people. HIV & AIDS is a human rights issue. This should be the most important reason why they should be interested and involved in reducing the HIV prevalence rate in the country. As decision makers, they should be encouraged to make informed debates on issues related to HIV. In the National AIDS Response, Parliament plays an effective role in:
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Designing, adopting, supervise and monitor the implementation of laws that promote ‘Universal Access’ and protect People infected or affected by HIV
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Providing strong leadership
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Shaping supportive laws and policies
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Ensuring Predictable and sustainable financing
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Ensuring that government and international commitments on HIV are respected
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Ensure that there is adequate and cost effective funding (also through internal resource mobilization)to the national and international AIDS programmes
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Strengthen budget review and appropriation processes of Committees to enhanced national and state AIDS responses
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And more importantly, commit 15% of the national budget to health and HIV/AIDS as per the Abuja Declaration (Ghana was one of the countries that signed this declaration)
In order to perform this role effectively, Parliamentarians (or members of an HIV committee in Parliament) should have their capacities strengthened and their knowledge on HIV programming and the Global AIDS Response scaled-up. This will make room for effective debates on HIV & AIDS
As youth advocacy groups, we also need to play a role in making our Parliamentarians and local leaders own the National AIDS response. We can:
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Deepen parliamentary interaction with a broad range of stakeholders, including civil society organizations, MDAs and Development Partners to improve domestic financing and aid effectiveness
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Provide regular advocacy briefs and reporting to Parliamentarians and local leaders
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Continuously remind them of their commitments and hold them accountable
Parliamentarians must take leadership in making decisions and taking actions on HIV related law and policy reforms that advance and do not constitute obstacles to the effective response to AIDS. Local leaders must contribute their own quota, using their leadership as a tool to for making progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 6 (Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases).
Credit: Presentation at ICASA by: Prof. John Idoko (DG, NACA) - Ownership & Accountability in Nigeria
