Latest update January 30th, 2025 6:10 AM
Apr 09, 2011 News
National investment and good performance have been cited as the primary cause of declining grant funds that are being directed towards PAN-Caribbean countries to aid the fight against HIV/AIDS.
This is according to Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who revealed recently that declining funds will undoubtedly have adverse implications for the partnership programmatic outreach.
“This is a threat that is not knocking at the doors, it has entered the room…I believe that the PANCAP countries in the Caribbean are being unfairly targeted by new eligibility criteria of the Global Fund which are gradually restricting and eliminating our countries from getting much needed funds.”
“I believe this is unfair and I view this to be punishment for national investment and good performance,” the Minister added.
In addition to addressing the threats that are surfacing, Minister Ramsammy noted that there remains an urgent need to protect the gains that have already been made.
“For those who think that we are relatively well off, the gains came at a great price and from much sacrifice…that sacrifice included the blood, sweat and tears, so the wellbeing of our people must be protected…
“We must be ambassadors and advocates to ensure that we in the PAN-Caribbean Region benefit fairly from global resources.”
He called for greater efficiency, less duplication of efforts, more targeted evidence-based prevention programmes and greater collaboration and cohesion in the partnership.
Although the world has changed fundamentally since the historic commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to HIV/AIDS, the recent global economic crisis has resulted in a significant decrease in donor spending for HIV/AIDS, especially for low and middle income countries.
Recently, Head of Human and Social Development at Caricom, Ms Myrna Bernard, at the opening of the Sixteenth Meeting of the Executive Board of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) also addressed the issue at the CARICOM Turkeyen Secretariat last week.
She recounted that the 2009 UNAIDS Report on country studies cited the negative impact of the crisis on AIDS programmes and noted that the percentage of countries where anti-retroviral treatment programmes were adversely affected by reduced external funding rose from 11 to 21 percent from July 2008 to July 2009.
Of specific interest is the fact that prevention programmes were identified as the most likely to be worse affected in all countries receiving external funding, Bernard added. “This point must be of specific concern to the Region since control of the epidemic is contingent on reducing the number of new infections which in turn requires aggressive development and implementation of prevention campaigns targeting those deemed to be more at risk.”
According to Bernard, the Caribbean has witnessed first hand the devastating effects which the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on all aspects of its development both nationally and regionally.
These effects, she said, have been felt on the individual, family and community levels, most obvious in the lost of human capital due to death and illness but also in the early stage of the epidemic which is characterised by the trauma of hopelessness and compounded by stigma and discrimination.
Jan 30, 2025
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