ABUJA, Nov 26 (AFP) - African leaders are to account for funds and grants received for the fight against HIV/AIDS during next week's international conference on the deadly disease here, organisers said Saturday.
The 14th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) opens on December 4 in Abuja and is expected to be attended by current and former African leaders -- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former US president Bill Clinton, among others.
"One of the innovations at the Abuja edition of ICASA is the Leadership Forum during which African leaders and administrators will be made to account for funds they received and programmes they designed to fight HIV/AIDS in their countries," ICASA president Femi Soyinka told AFP.
He said the six-day conference whose theme is "HIV/AIDS and the family", will discuss an integrated approach to the fight against the disease, bad social practices and poor leadership.
He said the conference will pay particular attention to the management and prevention of the epidemic that has killed millions of people in the continent.
"The people living with AIDS (PLWA) who are major stakeholders in the fight against the disease, will share their experiences with participants," Soyinka said. AIDS orphans will also take part in the conference.
In Nigeria, the state-run National Action Committee on AIFDS (NACA), rights bodies and PLWA groups have been fighting against stigmatisation and discrimination against AIDS sufferers.
Soyinka said the organisers had "scaled down" spending on the conference because of paucity of funds.
"At the start, we were working on a five-million-dollar budget. But due to financial hitches brought about by poor funding we are prioritising and scaling down on our spending," he said.
Soyinka said the US government, one of the expected donors, once placed an embargo on funding ICASA.
"When the embargo was lifted three weeks ago, it was too late," he added.
He said just around half of the five million dollars budgeted for the conference has so far been realised from donor agencies and sponsors.
Soyinka said despite the financial constraints, the forthcoming conference would be a huge success.
"I am 100 percent hopeful of the success of ICASA in Abuja in view of the commitment of all stakeholders," he added.
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