NEW YORK, Dec 29 (AFP) - Famine and AIDS threaten the women who keep African societies going and make up the economic foundation of rural communities, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in Sunday's New York Times.
"Today, millions of African women are threatened by two simultaneous catastrophes: famine and AIDS. More than 30 million people are now at risk of starvation in southern Africa and the Horn of Africa.
"Because of AIDS, farming skills are being lost, agricultural development efforts are declining, rural livelihoods are disintegrating, productive capacity to work the land is dropping and household earnings are shrinking -- all while the cost of caring for the ill is rising exponentially," Annan said.
"Today, AIDS has a woman's face," he said.
A UN report last month showed women make up 50 percent of those infected with HIV worldwide and in Africa that figure is 58 percent. Annan outlined new strategies for combatting the social upheaval wrought by AIDS and HIV.
"Our effort will have to combine food assistance and new approaches to farming with treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS. It will require creating early-warning and analysis systems that monitor both HIV infection rates and famine indicators.
"It will require new agricultural techniques, appropriate to a depleted work force. It will require a renewed effort to wipe out HIV-related stigma and silence."
He added: "It will require innovative, large-scale ways to care for orphans, with specific measures that enable children in AIDS-affected communities to stay in school.
"Education and prevention are still the most powerful weapons against the spread of HIV."
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