IPS News - DEVELOPMENT: EU AID PLANS IGNORE HIV/AIDS AND CHILDREN (29 January 2007)
Brussels, 29/01/07, (IPS): HIV/AIDS, child labour and the rights of women are largely ignored in new plans for spending EU aid in Asia and Latin America.
Although the regions contain some of the highest numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, none of the draft strategy papers for EU development assistance there in 2007-13 proposes that the fight against the epidemic should be a priority.
Marielle Hart, head of EU policy with the 'Stop AIDS Alliance', said she is "extremely surprised" at the lack of urgency with which the European Commission is addressing the disease.
The strategy for Cambodia, she added, acknowledges that HIV/AIDS threatens to undermine the country’s development but contains no firm ideas for rectifying this situation.
The UN warned Jan. 19 that more than 700,000 Cambodians will not receive essential food because of lack of funds. Young children and people with HIV and tuberculosis are those most affected, it said. UNAIDS has previously predicted that AIDS will account for one out of every four orphans by 2010.
Some 8.6 million Asians were living with HIV in 2006. At an estimated 5.7 million, India now has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world.
Hart said that the EU’s 2005 programme for action on AIDS, TB and malaria commits the European Commission to defining and implementing an "appropriate strategy" to tackle these diseases in its plan for each recipient of EU aid.
The European Parliament and the EU’s 27 member states have recently begun assessing the strategy papers for Asia and Latin America, with the aim of signing them off in March.
An analysis by Eurostep, a network of non-governmental organisations focusing on EU-financed development aid, has found serious flaws in most of the 33 strategy papers.
While the draft EU constitution would require the European Union to uphold children’s rights in its dealings with wider world, this is not reflected in the strategy papers.
Ecuador, for example, has one of the highest rates of child labour in Latin America, yet the paper for that country recommends no programme for dealing with it. About 34 percent of Ecuadoreans in the 10-14 age bracket are in paid employment. Human rights organisations have expressed concern about the exploitation of Ecuadorean children, particularly in prostitution and on banana plantations.
Gender issues are also sidestepped in the papers. Out of a sample of 12 papers which Eurostep analysed from the standpoint of gender equality, only one (Pakistan) proposed a programme for improving the status of women.
Simon Stocker, Eurostep’s director, called on EU policy-makers to learn from the findings of an International Labour Organisation report issued last week. The ILO found that despite the growth of the global economy, unemployment during 2006 was at its highest historical level.
"The strategy papers for Asia and Latin America are clearly being driven by a narrow economic agenda, with the overriding aim of making money for western firms," he told IPS.
"EU officials need to wake up and realise that this agenda will not bring tangible results for the poor. They desperately need to go back to the drawing board and put human and social development, rather than corporate profits, at the heart of these strategies," Stocker said.
It is telling, he said, that poverty levels remain high even in some of the Latin American countries which are widely considered to be robust economic performers.
Uruguay is considered the second best performer in the Mercosur trading area, which also includes Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Paraguay. Yet Uruguay saw the proportion of its population living below the poverty line rise from 18 percent in 2001 to 32 percent in 2004.
