Global AIDS Alliance

End Poverty

Please click here for recent action alerts, news, and reports related to poverty and AIDS.

Did you know?

Poverty and disease are inextricably linked, and this is especially true of HIV/AIDS. People who are poor or lack education are often forced to make survival choices that put them at increased risk of HIV infection. Currently 95% of all people with HIV/AIDS live in developing countries. But even in wealthy countries like the United States, the problems associated with poverty, including limited access to quality health care, housing, and HIV prevention education, increase the risk of HIV infection. This is clearly evidenced in the disproportionate impact of HIV on African American and Latino communities across the US.

The spread of AIDS also increases the threat of poverty. At the household level, families face a loss of income as wage-earners become ill, and many are forced to sell assets to pay for HIV/AIDS medications and other health services, as well as funeral expenses. At the community level, HIV is straining already over-burdened health care systems. Schools are becoming dysfunctional, losing their teachers to illness and death. In Zambia, for example, roughly half the teachers trained each year are dying from AIDS. And farmers are becoming too sick to work, exacerbating food shortages and famines in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.

Quite simply, eliminating extreme poverty will make people less vulnerable to HIV, and slowing the spread of HIV will help reduce poverty.

In September 2000, leaders from all 191 United Nations member states adopted the Millennium Declaration—a commitment to end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. This declaration established eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), each of which include specific targets and indicators for measuring progress.

MDG #1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
MDG #2 Achieve universal primary education
MDG #3 Promote gender equality and empower women
MDG #4 Reduce child mortality
MDG #5 Improve maternal health
MDG #6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
MDG #7 Ensure environmental sustainability
MDG #8 Develop a global partnership for development

Unfortunately, US government opposition prevented adoption of a ninth Millennium Development Goal to ensure universal access to reproductive health and rights. This goal has since been included as a specific target under MDG #5, and is also being addressed through agreements reached at meetings such as the 1994 International Conference and Population in Cairo. In addition, the World Bank recently adopted a new health, nutrition and population strategy that reaffirms a commitment to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services.

MDG #6 specifically addresses the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but all of the MDGs play an important role in halting and reversing the spread of this disease. Conversely, HIV's continued spread undermines progress toward the MDGs.

What needs to be done?

Government leaders and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank must be held accountable for concrete progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. Clearly, poverty will not be eradicated without an immediate and major increase in international aid. In 2005, the world's eight wealthiest nations, known as the G8, promised to increase aid by $50 billion annually by 2010. This could pay for every child to go to school, save the lives of 500,000 women who die each year in pregnancy and childbirth, and help train the six million teachers and health workers urgently needed around the world.

But recent figures indicate that the G8 could miss its own $50 billion target by a staggering $30 billion. At the same time, aid from the G8 nations has increased by less than half of what would be expected to reach the goal of doubling aid to Africa by 2010. In fact, global aid declined in 2006 for the first time in ten years. Aid from the richest 22 countries fell by 5.1%, compared with 2005. Sadly, only five wealthy countries-Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden-are currently meeting the United Nations target of contributing 0.7% of gross national income in aid to poor countries. (If all rich countries had met this 0.7% goal, aid to poor countries would have been $240 billion in 2006, instead of just $103 billion.)

Money alone cannot end extreme poverty. Development assistance or foreign aid needs to focus better on poor people's needs.

• This means more aid targeted to basic health care and education—both of which drive economic and social progress and are the primary means of reducing the poverty that prevents developing countries from achieving their full potential.

• It means that wealthy countries and financing institutions such as the International Monetary Fund should not make aid dependent on recipient countries adopting specific economic reforms, such as privatizing or deregulating utilities or other basic services, cutting health and education spending in order to control inflation, or adopting open markets.

• It means fair trade policies that allow poor countries to compete on a level playing field and to harness the benefits of trade for development. Poor countries shouldn't be forced to open their markets to foreign imports and businesses, or to sell off public services like electricity and water supplies. And they should be allowed to support agriculture and other vulnerable industries in the same way that wealthy countries do.

• And it means a reduction in the crushing debt burden that prevents many poor countries from investing adequately in basic social services. In 2005, G8 leaders pledged to cancel $40 billion in debt, but to date only $19.3 billion has been canceled through the G8's debt relief initiative. The poorest countries still pay the rich world $100 million each day in debt repayment—money that could be used to scale up basic health and education services.

Of course, addressing problems of both government and private sector corruption is essential to ensuring that recipient countries make good use of foreign aid. Additionally, there are many efforts under way to ensure that developing countries increase their own spending on anti-poverty programs. For example, a new "15% Now!" Campaign is urging African leaders to fulfill their commitment to spend at least 15% of annual national budgets on health care.

With millions of people suffering and dying due to a lack of basic resources, governments, multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, and funders such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund must be held accountable for taking concrete action to eliminate poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

What is the Global AIDS Alliance doing?

GAA's work is most directly related to achieving MDG #6, and we are actively engaged in a range of efforts to hold governments and other stakeholders accountable for concrete progress toward ensuring universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care. But GAA's work supports the Millennium Development Goals in many other ways. For example:

• GAA is working to eliminate school fees in the world's poorest countries, which will help achieve universal basic education (MDG #2) and promote economic and social progress.

• GAA is working to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of pediatric AIDS, which will be essential to reducing child mortality (MDG #4).

• GAA is working to promote the integration of sexual and reproductive health and HIV services, which will increase female empowerment (MDG #3) and improve maternal health (MDG #5).

• GAA is promoting a comprehensive "Zero Tolerance" approach to violence against women and children, which will encourage gender equality (MDG #3), improve maternal health (MDG #5), and slow the spread of HIV (MDG #6).

• GAA is supporting efforts to prevent international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund from imposing economic conditions that prevent poor countries from investing more of their own resources in essential health and social services.

• GAA is playing a lead role in advancing innovative financing mechanisms such as the International Finance Facility, a tax on airline tickets, and Global Fund debt conversion, which could generate significant new resources for health and education programs.

Where can I learn more?

At the bottom of this page, you will find a selection of recent materials related to poverty and HIV/AIDS, including action alerts, news, and reports. In addition, GAA partners with other organizations to help eliminate extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Many of these groups offer additional information about poverty and the MDGs, including the following:

ActionAid International
Global Call to Action Against Poverty
Jubilee USA Network
Make Poverty History
The Millennium Project
ONE Campaign
Oxfam (UK)

Click here for a full list of GAA's advocacy partners.