Canadian News
Developing an International HIV/AIDS Strategy for Canada
On 5-6 October 1995, 30 representatives from Canadian governmental and non-governmental organizations, and researchers involved in HIV/AIDS work, will attend a forum organized by Health Canada. They will discuss what an international HIV/AIDS Strategy for Canada should look like.
In 1993, Canada announced Phase II of its National AIDS Strategy. Among many other things, the Strategy includes a focus on international activities. However, Canada has so far not adopted its own, independent international AIDS Strategy. Work on such a strategy started in April 1995, when the National AIDS Secretariat brought together a small group of individuals (who had previously worked together in preparing for the Paris Summit on AIDS in December 1994) to start developing a "Framework for Action" intended to help develop Canada's international AIDS Strategy. This Strategy is intended to foster a more cogent approach to Canada's response to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic by:
• coordinating program interventions;
• focusing the allocation of resources; and
• integrating Canadian health and development strategies addressing the international HIV/AIDS situation.
Participants in the forum – over one-third of whom will be representatives of international development NGOs and persons living with HIV/AIDS – will be provided with the "Framework for Action," which suggests objectives, priorities, and a common strategy for partnership among Canadian government departments, non-governmental organizations, and people living with HIV/AIDS. Participants will have an opportunity to make recommendations regarding the contents of the Strategy, and a mechanism for its implementation will be suggested. It is anticipated that the Strategy will be finalized in the fall, and that its active implementation could start immediately thereafter. The AIDS Secretariat of Health Canada will continue to provide logistical and administrative support for its coordination.
The forum is a timely initiative. Current "international best practice" in addressing HIV/AIDS is characterized by an emphasis on a coordinated multi-sectoral approach to AIDS and closer cooperation between governments and NGOs. Experience has shown the importance of forging partnerships with those most vulnerable to HIV infection – the poor, women, sexual minorities, sex workers, and migrants – in order to address:
• the limited capacity of governments to work directly with these groups.
According to historian Dennis Altman, "wherever it is possible, there will be grassroots responses to the demands of the epidemic, and no government or international agency programme can be effective if it does not co-operate with and support such responses."[1]
Most major international AIDS stakeholders increasingly reflect this understanding in their international HIV/AIDS work. UNAIDS, the new Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS, which brings together six agencies, is by definition multi-sectoral. Recently, the World Bank has recognized the importance of NGOs in addressing AIDS and has committed itself to strengthening the community response to HIV/AIDS.
The forum, which brings together representatives from a range of government and non-government sectors, is consistent with this increased emphasis on multi-sectoral, collaborative efforts in addressing HIV/AIDS. It provides important opportunities:
• to develop a more coherent approach to Canada's international HIV/AIDS work.
While the latter is generally well-regarded, overall, it does not consciously build on the lessons learned from the first decade of the pandemic: to date, Canada's international HIV/AIDS program and research priorities have been decided by government departments, universities, and NGOs on a somewhat ad hoc basis. In the best-case scenario, individual departments, universities and organizations have policies in place to guide their international HIV/AIDS work. In the worst-case scenario, policies are outdated, limited by a view of HIV/AIDS as only a health issue, or are simply non-existent.
The absence of a stated collective commitment to a multi-sectoral approach based on government and non-government collaboration has tended to be to the detriment of support for:
• Canadian groups who want to work in solidarity with groups in the developing world.
Canadian NGOs, community-based and persons living with HIV/AIDS groups do not carry as strong a political voice as the universities or health institutions that have been well-funded to undertake international HIV/AIDS work. The bulk of Canada's international HIV/AIDS spending – over $100 million since 1985 – has either been through bilateral channels (with Canadian universities and health institutions acting as executing agencies), or through multilateral channels. At the same time, the NGO/community sector has remained underfunded: organizations such as the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) and the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD) have received some support, but that support is in danger of being withdrawn. Other organizations such as Global Network Plus and the International Community of Women have not received any government funding. Many Canadian international development NGOs are struggling for survival because of cuts in overall government support for NGOs.
The development of Canada's international AIDS Strategy will, one hopes, provide at least two things: formal recognition of the important role of the community sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and greater financial support to enable NGOs to participate in a meaningful way in supporting community-based responses to HIV/AIDS all over the world.
- Áine Costigan
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ENDNOTE
[1] D Altman. Power and Community: Organizational and Cultural Responses to AIDS. Taylor and Francis Ltd, 1994, at 166.