Regional Director, UNAIDS, Patrick Brenny
The Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA) has held a two-day validation workshop on the African HIV Financing Scorecard with a call for increased domestic funding for HIV response activities.
According to the society, improved domestic funding will bridge the 20 per cent global funding for HIV gap, and help the continent meet the UNAIDS 2020 and 2030 targets of fighting HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Regional Director, UNAIDS, Patrick Brenny who made the call at a consultative meeting organized for health sector workers and CSOs on the continent said African nations needed to have sustainable responses towards its HIV response by mobilizing resources themselves, as external resources were no longer reliable.
“How do we have systems that are going to work so that we don’t depend on the charity of someone else going to give us funding, which may be there today and be gone tomorrow,” he said.
Research Development Director of Accountability International, developers of the scorecard, Phillipa Tucker, said, in the past 20 years, national governments, global funded and CSOs made significant progress in expanding access to life saving antiretroviral treatment and prevention options in the fight against HIV.
She indicated that at the same time, contributions by international donors flattened, even though, there is a US$5 billion gap in the resources needed to achieve the joint UN programme on HIV/AIDS 90-90-90 targets.
Per data collected for the scorecard, she said, Ghana recorded 14,000 AIDS related deaths and 20,000 per cent change in new HIV infections in 2018.
Ghana also recorded ‘no data’ for sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender people, people living with HIV and prisoners for avoidance of healthcare because of stigma and discrimination.
Hence, the need for African governments to find sustainable means of generating funds to finance HIV/AIDS prevention and control, she explained.
Ms Tucker said to support the campaign for Africa to generate funds; Accountability International developed a scorecard to grade countries against each other to encourage them to work harder in that regard.
The scorecard would also enlighten countries on what others did to control HIV in terms of policies and actions, to influence them.
Conclusions made at the end of the meeting would be incorporated into the final document to be presented to African governments.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri