Phil Hay: It’s my great pleasure ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, Excellencies and First Ladies, to welcome you to this round table discussion with the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS. Paul Wolfowitz has also walked down the corridor from chairing the Board today, so without any further ado, let me ask Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank Group, for his opening remarks to our round table discussion. Mr. Wolfowitz?
Paul Wolfowitz: Good morning, Phil. Thank you. I want to extend a very warm welcome to everyone here and also beg your indulgence. We had an unexpected death in the family and that threw my Board schedule off, so I am juggling schedules today. I have to be back with my Board, so unfortunately I will miss most of the discussion here, but I have been assured I will see a good written record and will read it with great interest. I really want to welcome all of you to the World Bank Group. I particularly would like to welcome our special guests from the Leadership Organization of African First Ladies. The First Lady of Zambia, Mrs. Maureen Mwanawasa, Chairman of the Organization of African First Ladies, welcome. The First Lady of Ethiopia, Mrs. Azeb Mesfin, Co-chair, and the First Lady of Rwanda, Mrs. Jeannette Kagame, former Chair. Welcome all of you and congratulations on the award that you received last night. I know that all of Africa is proud of you and we’re proud to be your friends.
I want to give a special welcome also to John DeGioia, President of Georgetown University. We’re neighbors and he and I have met before, but John, I think this is the first time that you’re visiting the Bank Group, at least that I know of, and certainly the first time to be co-sponsoring an HIV/AIDS event here at the bank so a very warm welcome to you. I hope that you will all have a very fruitful discussion on a critical topic, HIV/AIDS in Africa and its impact particularly on women and children.
Sadly, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the regions hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. Roughly two-thirds of all people living with HIV/AIDS live in Africa, that’s two-thirds of the total 25 million people worldwide. For many reasons including poverty, gender, gender and equality and social economic status, women are disproportionately affected by HIV in every region of the world. In Africa, women represent more than half, nearly 60%, of all adults living with the disease on the sub-continent.
Young women in particular are the most vulnerable group at the center of this terrible epidemic. Half of the more than 14, 000 new infections that occur each day affect young people aged 15 to 24. On average, 3 young women are infected for every young man. I’m sure all of you have even more personal experience, but I will never forget one of my first encounters with an African woman living with AIDS.
We visited an HIV support clinic outside Abuja, run by a very brave retired colonel from the Nigerian army, and when people started to open up, this one woman I would guess in her mid-30s said with tears in her eyes: “The stigma killed me before the disease.” She said, “I lost my job, I lost my home, I lost my family, I had no reason to live until these people took me in.” Even for those people who survive AIDS, it’s a continuing tragedy and something that we need to work very, very hard on to overcome.
Some years ago, back in 2000, I received a briefing that predicted, among other things, that by the year 2005 there would be more AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa, than the entire population of children east of the Mississippi River in the United States. When I got here to the Bank 5 years later in 2005, I asked if that grim prediction had come true and I was told, yes, indeed it had, and that Africa today is home to 12 million AIDS orphans and some 2.3 million children living with the disease themselves. That’s more children I believe than the total number of children in France, the UK, and almost as many as all of Germany. It’s a staggering number and it’s a tragic number.
AIDS and malaria have become the leading causes of death among women and children in Africa. We need to work together to address these preventable deaths. AIDS has had a profound impact on the people of Africa, on their families, on their communities, and on their countries. Economic growth and poverty reduction efforts have been slowed, compounding this tragedy. Average life expectancy in the region dropped by 3 years between 1990 and 2004, and in the worst hit country, Botswana, it fell by 29 years. It’s very hard to sustain economic progress and economic growth in the face of this challenge. So these warning trends must be reversed. This disease is not only a health problem, it’s a global development challenge that cuts across all sectors and holds back entire countries.
Let me just tell you briefly about what the World Bank is doing. We are committed to supporting HIV/AIDS and to working in partnership with others. Over the past 5 years, the Bank has significantly increased its response with strategies and programs to address the disease in all regions. I think you’ll hear this morning about the work that we and the Bank Group are doing, and as you know, progress is being made in many countries. We need to keep on working together and doing more.
In that respect I would like your help in two areas of our collective work. As you know, we work in partnership with government agencies, with bilateral and multi-lateral donors, with the UN system, with civil society and with the private sector. In spite of significant increases in global financing, the epidemic continues to take a huge human and economic toll on the sub-continent. Coordination and harmonization among donors is more important than ever.
While the Bank is no longer the major development financier for HIV/AIDS work, we nevertheless can play an important role in integrating those actions into national development agendas, filling in the financing gaps, and strengthening health systems and capacity building. So, I would like to make a special plea to you as First Ladies of the continent to help us in two particular areas. First of all to help us insure that all the major agencies continue to work in partnership in fighting this epidemic for the long-term, and harmonizing around country processes and systems.
When I visited Rwanda, I was particularly impressed by the work that Agnes Binagwaho described to bring people together on a single program of action. I was very impressed when she told me that if men come to clinics to be treated on their own, they’re sent away until they come back with their families and that if donors try to implement their own independent programs, they’re told, “We don’t want you unless you’re working in a common program.” I think that kind of firmness is essential and we want to support that because we need to pull together.
As First Ladies, you can play an important role as strong advocates to ensure that the drivers of the epidemic can be addressed, and that the vulnerability of women and children are a primary concern. Secondly, we need your help to ensure that all the money provided to fight HIV/AIDS does reach those who need it, and that it’s used effectively and efficiently.
We need to maintain good governance over these funds. Your organization can help by making it clear to governments and to other partners that Africa is watching and particularly the women and children of Africa are watching. I’ve asked my staff to work with your organization to determine the best way that we can cooperate in these areas.
Let me just conclude by thanking you for taking time out of your busy schedule in Washington to spend some time here with us this morning discussing this important subject. I look forward to our continued collaboration and as I said, I will read with great interest the discussion this morning. Phil, thank you very much. |
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