Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Sunday, 9 July 2000
Hil Anderson in Los Angeles
Speaking to delegates at the 13th International AIDS Conference in South Africa, Callisto Madavo, vice president of the bank's Africa Region, said Saturday that the funding would be available in the form of International Development Association credits that mature in 40 years and offer a 10-year grace period; much of the funding will be targeted to local areas through national programs.
"Nearly every country in Africa will be able to access these funds," Madavo said. "All that is needed is a sound national AIDS strategy developed in a participatory way, backed by serious government commitment."
The spread of AIDS through Africa has been a source of alarm for the World Bank in recent years, both for its ferocity and the dire consequences it is having on the development of nations with high rates of infection.
A 1999 World Bank report said AIDS and the HIV virus were becoming a major economic and social drain on many nations because it not only required cash-strapped governments to pay for medical programs, but also cut down valuable workers, farmers and teachers in their prime -- orphaned large numbers of children, and wiped out the finances of families forced to pay for medical care and, eventually, funerals.
"Not since the Bubonic Plague of the European Middle Ages has there been so large a threat to hundreds of millions of people - and to the future of entire economies and societies," said the report entitled "Intensifying Action Against AIDS/HIV in Africa: Responding to a Development Crisis."
The report cast a fair amount of the blame for the epidemic on African governments that they perceived as too slow to act or not as concerned about a disease that they consider no worse than the age-old scourge of malaria.
Madavo said that money alone was only part of the answer, and called the war on AIDS in Africa a matter of "commitment."
"Only where governments show leadership can international support be effective," Madavo said. "We are beginning to see an upsurge of such leadership."
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