Civil society groups urge G8 to follow through with AIDS funding commitments

"Civil society organisations from around the world on Wednesday made a coordinated appeal to the Canadian government to help pressure the Group of Eight (G8) into fulfilling its aid commitments in the fight against AIDS," which are predicted to be over $20 billion short of commitments pledged by the G8 during the Gleneagles summit in 2005, the Mail & Guardian reports.

As Canada prepares for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in June, the World AIDS Campaign, "a global coalition of civil society groups," hopes the country can "use its influence as host nation to 'set the agenda' and reinvigorate commitments" by the G8, according to the newspaper. The group also appealed for G8 countries to replenish the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Mail & Guardian notes.

In addition to making funding commitments, the World AIDS Campaign "is calling for the G8 to agree to a concrete, time-bound plan to achieve universal access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support," the newspaper writes.

"Most governments, after 1995, did not come up with concrete interventions. What we want to see is an approach that is more practical" and holds both donor and recipient countries accountable, Daniel Molokele, Africa programme officer for the World AIDS Campaign, said. "Molokele said the organisation is not as concerned with the funding shortfall as it is with the lack of planning around the use and disbursement of funds for the AIDS struggle or a review mechanism by which to gauge the impact of those funds," according to the newspaper (Parker, 3/24).

"Unions and civil society throughout the world must join forces in delivering a decisive message to the Canadian presidency about the need for universal access to core HIV services," Alan Leather, chair of the Global Unions AIDS Programme (GUAP), said in a press release on the World AIDS Campaign Web site. The universal access appeal "is timed to precede a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the G20 countries in Ottawa, Canada on March 29-30, 2010, and a meeting of Development Ministers In Halifax, Canada April 26-28, 2010," the release notes (3/18).