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E-mail: baumaowuor@worldbank.org WASHINGTON, DC, July 6, 2007 - The Horn of Africa is one of the regions that has been most prominently impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This area is characterized by sizeable mobile populations of transport workers, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and cross-border populations, populations that are most vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. However, the Horn of Africa is also where there is hope that something can be done to bring about change. Countries like Kenya and Uganda are bringing down their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates -- from 15% and 18.5% respectively in the 1990s to about 6.1% and 6.7% today. The efforts that have seen these figures come tumbling down have been mainly at country level. But not much attention has been paid to the very vulnerable cross-border mobile populations, especially in the seven countries that form the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). A cross-border mapping exercise of HIV/AIDS interventions in the Horn of Africa done by IGAD in 2005- 2006, confirmed that cross-border and mobile populations, who faced a high risk of infection, were often not included in national strategies or policies and had very poor or no health services available to them. This raised alarm bells that the gains made in combating HIV/AIDS in the Horn of Africa could be obliterated unless something was done to address issues of population mobility and migration. Recognizing that movement of vulnerable populations is a major challenge in the region, on June 28, 2007 the World Bank and IGAD signed a $15 million grant to support the IGAD Regional HIV/AIDS Partnership Program (IRHAPP). The program seeks to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS among cross-border and mobile populations in IGAD’s member states: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. The four-year project, which aims to reduce the vulnerability of these mobile populations, was initiated with the support of the World Bank and will be the first to be financed by the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund (ACGF). Speaking at the signing ceremony, which took place at World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, Kenyan Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Peter Ogego, who signed on behalf of IGAD, said the project was very timely because the impact of HIV/AIDS among mobile populations was a major concern. Kenya is the current chair of IGAD. “The challenge IGAD faces is the mobile populations of pastoralists, internally displaced persons and the high number of refugees in the region,” Ogego said. “These are the pockets of persons that have not been reached due to poor infrastructure. This project will support the efforts of member countries in dealing with HIV/AIDS....” The Kenyan envoy said he hoped that the project could be expanded into a sustainable program with involvement of other stakeholders such as the African Development Bank. He said that with the implementations of the project, IDA expected to see immediate results. “It should be easy to implement this project and to see progress immediately. With this intervention, the national and regional prevalence rates of HIV infection will go down further.” Speaking on behalf of the World Bank, the Director for Regional Integration in Africa Mark Tomlison said that HIV/AIDS was one of the migratory diseases in Africa that needed to be tackled through coordinated efforts at both the country and regional levels. “The Bank has engaged in a number of programs to support the fight against HIV/AIDS and this one is more targeted at the transport corridors in the Horn of Africa,” Tomlison said. The task team leader for the project, Frode Davanger, said the project was designed with recognition that HIV/AIDS is considered a national issue, which can be tackled by a given country. “HIV/AIDS does not respect national borders, so you need the combination of national and regional interventions…,”he said. The IGAD Regional HIV/AIDS Partnership Program (IRHAPP) Support Project was approved by the IGAD Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS in March 2007 and endorsed by the IGAD Council of ministers in April. The Program Facilitation Office will be located in Kampala, Uganda. Contributed By Steven Shalita, Uganda Country Office. |
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