Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome
to the first day in the last month of the year 2012! December 1 of everyone is
set aside from the commemoration of what today is known as the World AIDS Day!
The former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan once
said: “Every generation faces its great challenge. The fight against
HIV/AIDS may be ours. Only if we meet this challenge can we succeed in our
efforts to build a humane, healthy and equitable world”. This is still
very apt to the situation in most nations across the globe.
We
have had a lot of Political Declarations, unanimously adopted by the United
Nations Members States, geared towards providing succor for people living with
HIV and AIDS, reinforcing the recognition given the pandemic as a major global
crisis. We still have a yawning gap particularly in resource mobilisation. It
is not good enough for us to be reliant on external funding from Taxpayers of
other nations to support our HIV and AIDS programmes in Nigeria.
If the figures are true, the
mobilisation of a meager 5% of our local resource does not dignify us a “Giant
of Africa” as we love to be called. Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General,
United Nations in the latest publications of the UNAIDS (2012)
reported that “The global community has made great progress [new
infections have been reduced by 50%] in the response to the pandemic. “More
people than ever”, he added, "are receiving treatment, care and support.
The prevention revolution is delivering dramatic results while science is
offering new hope”.
Rounding off, Ban Ki-Moon
stressed:” Now is the time to take even more bold action, inspired by true
global solidarity to achieve an AIDS-free world. I hope all those reading this
report will use the information it provides to spur progress towards this goal
[GETTING TO ZERO]. Together, we can realise our vision of zero new infections, zero
discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths”. The question is: where are
at the local, state and national levels? The same cannot be said of these from
the look of things today!
We
play the ostrich all the time! Can you imagine the honesty of President Barak
Obama in his World AIDS Day 2011 statement: “The rate of new infections may be
going down elsewhere, but it’s not going down here in America...there are
communities in this countries being devastated, still, by this disease”.
World AIDS Day Campaigns
aims at enhancing and strengthening national efforts by the following:
1. Increasing
coordination among civil society campaign efforts and building their capacity
to engage with governments more meaningfully and constructively;
2. Helping
civil society promote the engagement of all sectors in the response;
3. Actively
supporting both national implementation of the Declaration of Commitment on
HIV/AIDS and the mobilization of additional resources for the response;
4. Stimulating emerging campaigns and linking
them with established campaigns so that they might gain from valuable
experience to local voices; and
5. Creating a powerful voice that delivers
consistent and helpful messages capable of influencing policy-makers and
securing the global resources needed for a scaled-up and increased response.
The
theme of the World AIDS Day from 2011-2015 is all about “GETTING TO ZERO. This
implication of this is we should work towards HIV-related “ZERO NEW
INFECTIONS”, “ZERO DISCRIMINATION” and “ZERO AIDS-RELATED DEATH”. Yes
“AIDS-related death” because nobody really dies or can die from AIDS but one
can die from opportunistic infections (OIs) arising from the inadequate
or lack of protection by the ‘soldiers’ of the body to defend one from easily preventable
ailments- which the body’s immune system should have under normal
circumstances been able to deal or cope with.
The
United Nations threw its weight behind the “GETTING TO ZERO” campaign which is
expected to end by the Year 2015. It follows there that by the Year 2016, we
should be able to raise our heads above the waters to say, we have made it! The
campaign is a build up upon the foundation laid by the previous one “LIGHT FOR
RIGHTS” which was an evidence-informed initiative that took a look at an array
of crucial issues identified by key populations affected by the pandemic.
Zero
New Infections and Zero Discrimination have the capability to trigger high
impact events as have been lined up for today, December 1, 2012, from small
community vigils to nationwide activities using the globally recognised red
ribbon, the shape o zeros and the power of light to get the attention of all
and sundry in their little corners all over the world. Toda, different
groups are coming in different venues all over the world to drum up support for
the actualization of “GETTING TO ZERO”!
HIV and AIDS activists,
development workers as well as programmers have come up with platforms that
best suit their purses and their target audiences as there is no prescription
as to what should be done- as long as the actionable activities are geared
towards “GETTING TO ZERO”.
The civil society, People
Living with HIV, Health activists and several relevant stakeholders had chosen
to literarily go with Millennium Development-related goal of “GETTING TO ZERO”
after extensive discussions and consultative meetings! The journey
towards the attainment of “GETTING TO ZERO” is however driven by 10 concrete
milestones. All hands must be seen to be on the deck in order for us to
achieve the following goals by 2015:
· sexual
transmission of HIV reduced by half, including among young people, men who have
sex with me and transmission in the context of sex work;
· vertical
transmission of HIV eliminated and AIDS-related maternal deaths reduced by
half;
· all
new HIV infections prevented among people who use drugs;
· universal
access to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV who are eligible
for treatment;
· TB deaths amongst people living with HIV
reduced by half;
· all people living with HIV and households
affected by HIV are addressed in all national SOCIAL PROTECTION (emphasis mine)
strategies and have access to essential care and support;
· countries with punitive laws and practices
around HIV transmission, sex work, drug use or homosexuality that block
effective responses reduced by half;
· HIV-related restrictions on entry, stay and
residence eliminated in half of the countries that have such restrictions;
· HIV-specific
needs of women and girls are addressed in at least half of all national HIV
responses;
· zero
tolerance for gender-based violence.
Ladies and gentlemen, from
1988, the World AIDS Day Campaigns had proven, and continues to be effective
and powerful tools for experience sharing – drawing upon the existing critical
mass of knowledge and help of other to find their own solutions. As we
commemorate the World AIDS Day 2012, we need to revisit campaigns that are
highly imperative in mobilizing political will, changing national policies and
deployment of adequate resources to address the pandemic. Campaign will
only be effective and efficient when they meet the felt-needs of the local
communities.
Your caring attitude, my
caring attitude, is more than medicines to our brothers and sisters living with
HIV! It is in the light of this that we must give them support and
encouragements that can give them hope to live a life of dignity and
productivity! We need to listen to them, hear them out, learn from them
and respect their leadership.
Getting to zero
stigmatization is a clarion call on individuals, government, and corporate
bodies to go the extra mile in protecting the most-at-risk people (MARPs).
Those who are most vulnerable to HIV- they need to be empowered. Each and
everyone is the “lifeblood” of the AIDS response. Let us facilitate in
our small little corners, the institutionalisation of the investment
frameworks that will meet the felt-needs of the response and that will
address, head-on, resource mobilisation gaps as well as the glaring
Social Protection Deficit.
Finally let us live in the
daily consciousness of the fact that Human Rights, Gender equality and
Community empowerment are capable of boosting HIV responses and boarder social
and developmental progress. In the workplace or world of work, if we truly want
to get to zero, we must implement the national workplace policy on HIV and AIDS
side-by-side the International Labour Organization’s Recommendation 200 to
which Nigeria is a signatory! There are States Governments that have come
up with legal instruments to addressing HIV-induced stigma and discrimination,
the bill is yet to be passed into law by the National Assembly after several
years!
It
makes sense meanwhile, to provide legal professionals (our “learned” friends)
with international instruments they can use to defend the fundamental Human
Rights of people living with or affected by HIV and AIDS in the absence of
specific national laws that should have been put in place.
·
SOURCE:
Olusina O. OLULANA |Executive Secretary|Nigerian Business Coalition Against
AIDS
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