USIA Washington File - 16 September 1999
Jim Fisher-Thompson, USIA Staff Writer
Thurman told a September 15 morning conference sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) and the Constituency for Africa (CFA), that "the impact of AIDS in Africa, from the social perspective, is simply staggering." Twelve million Africans have already succumbed to infection from the virus, which has no known cure, and more than 11,000 new cases develop every day on the continent, she said.
Thurman noted that "in just the last 15 or so years, AIDS has virtually wiped out all the progress we've made in development in Africa ... and that amounts to an investment of billions of dollars. If you look at what is going to happen in just the next couple of years, AIDS will double infant mortality, triple child mortality, and slash life expectancy in many African countries by 20 years."
Already, in Zimbabwe, life expectancy has gone from 59 years to 37 years, she added. But there are successes, Thurman said -- for example, in Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni's leadership has led to an almost 50 percent drop in the infection rate.
Thurman, who has made four trips to Africa in the past year, noted that there has been "critical resistance to talking about AIDS in some countries." But when its effects and threat to society and the economy are acknowledged, as President Museveni did in Uganda, she emphasized, a foundation is built on which other steps can be taken to successfully battle the scourge.
As far as U.S. policy is concerned, Thurman said it is important to remember that AIDS is "not just a health problem," but also a trade problem, as well as a problem for democracy and civil society. "And since Africa is a critical economic partner to the U.S., a successful fight against AIDS is fundamentally important to our ability to sustain economic development and growth and the partnerships that we've built up now," she said.
Thurman pointed out that since 1986 the United States has spent $1,000 million fighting AIDS in Africa, and she added that this "strong engagement" will continue in the form of a new AIDS initiative for Africa that President Clinton approved last July. She mentioned that the initiative will double the funds the United States spends on AIDS in Africa.
The programs in the aid package, she explained, will focus on AIDS prevention and care of children whose parents have died from AIDS. "In Africa we see an entire generation" of young people in danger, Thurman told her audience. In some countries, she said, one-fifth to one-third of all children have now been orphaned and in the next 10 years it is estimated that 40 million African children will be without parents because of the disease. The equivalent in the United States would be to orphan every child east of the Mississippi River, she said.
But all is not gloom and despair, Thurman said. "There are incredible organizations all across Africa who have come together and are doing incredible work on the ground. People are mobilizing to fight HIV/AIDS and to provide for" its victims, and the U.S. government will continue to work hand in hand with African governments and NGOs to battle the disease, which kills 5,500 Africans every day.
Another U.S. federal agency concerned with helping Africans fight AIDS is the Commerce Department, whose deputy director for Africa in the International Trade Administration, Jerry Feldman, spoke to the AIDS forum.
Now that many African nations have "reversed the long period of economic stagnation," averaging an economic growth rate of around 5 percent since 1995, Feldman, like Thurman, said there are real concerns that "the gains may be reversed" by the disease.
To counter that prospect, Feldman said, the Commerce Department wants to involve business, both in Africa and America, in the struggle to preserve hard-won social and economic gains.
Feldman mentioned the phenomenon in Africa where companies hire two or three people for training in a position, "hoping one will live" and not succumb to AIDS, adding, "We discussed how we could make the biggest impact in Africa and decided it was through outreach programs with companies, discussing the disease with their workers."
Congress also has an initiative on track to help Africans combat AIDS in the form of a bill proposed by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and championed by Representative Barbara Lee of California. Called "The AIDS Marshall Plan Fund for Africa" (H.R. 2675), the proposal seeks to establish a program "to provide assistance for HIV/AIDS research, prevention, and treatment activities in Africa," as stated in its text.
Lee, who attended the AIDS forum, said, "We need to move forward in a bold and innovative way to battle AIDS." The bill would do this, she added, by increasing U.S. AIDS assistance to Africa to $200 million a year. "We want to be a world leader in attacking this international crisis," she said, and the bill will help achieve that goal.
Under the bill, the AIDS funding would be administered by a corporation established by Congress called the AIDS Marshall Plan Fund for Africa Corporation (AMPFA). It would be an independent agency of the federal government that would work in conjunction with the White House and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), as well as with the heads of other federal agencies involved in HIV/AIDS activities in Africa.
Former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Princeton Lyman asked Lee if the bill would have a greater impact if it included all nations, not just Africa, and Lee replied, "We looked at that possibility, but decided that we had to start somewhere -- and considering that Africa accounts for more than 50 percent of the world's cases, we choose to focus on the continent."
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