BRC Press Release on Launch of World Disasters Report on HIV/AIDS

33 million living with HIV - world not living up to promise on AIDS

Aid agencies, the UN and governments must work harder and faster, says Red Cross

Failure to halt the global pandemic of HIV and its impact on communities has lead to the virus being identified as a ‘world disaster’ in an independent report released by the Red Cross today.

According to UNAIDS statistics, almost seven thousand people contract HIV every day, which is the equivalent of four people becoming newly infected every minute. Without a major change in the epidemic’s trajectory, AIDS will claim millions more lives. Since 1981, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS, and some 33 million are currently living with HIV.

The figures show the global response to HIV and AIDS has failed to keep pace with the spread of infection, despite the UN’s Millennium Development Goal to halt and begin reversing the trend by 2015.

“Eight years ago the world community agreed to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015. Just over halfway towards that target, HIV continues to decimate communities, robbing families of breadwinners and leaving tens of thousands of children orphaned” said Matthias Schmale, Director of British Red Cross International Division.

...“A concerted effort to tackle stigma and discrimination that HIV positive people are subjected to continues to be essential. In our own MORI poll, the British Red Cross discovered that 1 in 7 young people in the UK would not be willing to remain friends with someone who was HIV positive, and the figure for South Africa was 1 in 5. We must invest in long-term programmes that support HIV positive people and educate their communities. This will in turn encourage more people to come forward for testing, and help build community resilience.”

The British Red Cross has been supporting such a project run by the South African Red Cross in the province of KwaZulu Natal, where HIV is rife and one fifth of children have been orphaned by the virus.

“This year’s World Disasters Report is the first to focus on one condition and with good reason. For sub-Saharan African societies that are torn apart by HIV and for numerous marginalized groups worldwide, who are left to cope with death, disease and destitution, HIV is undoubtedly a disaster,” said Matthias Schmale. “The humanitarian community must rise to the challenge of HIV, next to the further challenges thrown up by climate change, migration, and the culture of violence that is prevalent in many societies.”

The Report not only analyses the enormous economic, social and intellectual toll of HIV and AIDS but also details the vast challenges the epidemic presents to governments, humanitarian organizations and local communities. HIV must be integrated as a cross-cutting issue in all forms of humanitarian assistance, including health care, nutrition, social programmes and security, whether in emergency operations, or in long-term developmental programmes. HIV, the Report contends, should not be set aside because other priorities seem to be more important.

“The scale of the problem may seem overwhelming, but inaction is not an option” said Matthias Schmale. “Through initiatives such as the South African Red Cross project in KwaZulu Natal, and the International Federation of the Red Cross HIV Global Alliance, we can tackle the rate of infection, expand support and care, and stigma and discrimination can be reduced globally.”

Launch of the World Disasters Report on HIV/AIDS epidemic

Aids epidemic a 'global disaster'
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva

The Aids epidemic in some countries is so severe that it should be classified as a disaster, the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) has warned.

The crisis fits the UN definition of a disaster as an event beyond the scope of any single society to cope with, says the IFRC.

The IFRC's annual report on world disasters usually focuses on specific natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The report says much of the money spent on Aids is not reaching those in need.

This year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is departing from tradition with its world disasters report, to focus on what it says is one of the most long term and complex problems facing the world: the HIV/Aids epidemic.

'Easy options'

By any standard, the epidemic is a global disaster: 25 million deaths, 33 million people living with HIV/Aids, 7,000 new infections every day.

The IFRC finds the world's response wanting.

There may be billions of dollars to spend on the fight against Aids, but the report warns that much of the money has not been targeted properly and is not reaching those most in need.

"When the history of HIV and Aids is written I think the people will say that we just went for the easier options," says Dr Mukesh Kapila, the IFRC's special representative on HIV/Aids.

General education and general awareness have been done, he says, but people at risk such as sex workers and injecting drug users are difficult for many governments to tackle.

Another area where the IFRC believes our response is lacking is in our approach to HIV/Aids during natural disaster or conflict.

The risk factors for the disease may rise, while at the same time - in the rush to bring in emergency relief - the needs of HIV/Aids patients may be forgotten.

Relief workers need to factor those needs into their relief programmes, Dr Kapila says.

After the South Asian tsunami hit Aceh in Indonesia in 2005, he says, "we had a rise in the risk factors like sexual and gender based violence, so we saw a situation where there was high vulnerability and HIV and other conditions can flourish in those circumstances."

The IFRC says Kenya is a good example of such an integrated approach.

When 300,000 people were displaced during post-election violence, health workers acted quickly to make sure Aids patients continued to get anti-retroviral drugs.

Patients in camps for the displaced were traced, and a free hotline was set up with details of the nearest Aids clinics.

That is the kind of swift and targeted response which is needed, the IFRC says, to a global disaster which will be with us for years to come.

Food price crisis - a clutch of new publications from Reliefweb

New on Reliefweb:

• FAO on 'Facts, perspectives and actions' - UPDATED
• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on 'The What, Who, and How of Proposed Policy Actions'
• Chatham House on the Future of Food and Food Supply Scenarios

Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children: Disabilities among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations

This report is the culmination of a six-month project commissioned by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and co-funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to address the rights and needs of displaced persons with disabilities, with a particular focus on women (including older women), children and youth. Based on field research in five refugee situations, as well as global desk research, the Women’s Commission sought to map existing services for displaced persons with disabilities, identify gaps and good practices and make recommendations on how to improve services, protection and participation for displaced persons with disabilities. The objective of the project was to gather initial empirical data and produce a Resource Kit that would be of practical use to UN and nongovernmental organization (NGO) field staff working with displaced persons with disabilities.

Access the report via Reliefweb.

CRED: Annual Disaster Statistical Review - The Numbers and Trends 2007

In 2007, 414 natural disasters were reported. They killed 16847 persons, affected more than 211 million others and caused over 74.9 US$ billion in economic damages.

Even if a greater diffusion of disaster occurrence across countries was noted, the toll of human impacts remained concentrated across a small number of disasters and countries. Despite no "mega disaster" being reported, the 10 most important disasters in terms of mortality, victims, and damage accounted for 55.6%, 85.2%, and 66.2% respectively of all the reported deaths, people affected, and damages.

Last year’s number of reported disasters confirmed the global upward trend in natural disaster occurrence. This upward trend is mainly driven by the increase in the number of reported hydro-meteorological disasters. Hydrological (essentially floods) and meteorological (storms) disasters are the major contributors to this pattern. In recent decades, the number of reported hydrological disasters has increased by 7.4% per year on average. Furthermore, we have witnessed a strengthening of the upward trend in recent years, with an average annual growth rate of 8.4% in the 2000 to 2007 period.

Read more on Reliefweb.

ALNAP: Organisational Change in the Humanitarian Sector

Most of us, at some time or another, will try to change how work is done in our organisations. We may work in organisational functions that exist to create change and improvements in performance: evaluation; policy development; training and learning; or strategic planning. We may be a manager or non-managerial staff member who sees how things could be done better and attempts to ‘put them right’.

Whatever the starting point, we will often end up in a similar place: frustrated and dissatisfied, with changes incomplete, and facing apathy, confusion and unintended consequences.

This chapter addresses the topic of change in humanitarian organisations. Drawing on the findings of a programme of research conducted between October 2007 and January 2008, it questions the efficacy of some of our traditional approaches to change and performance improvement, and suggests alternative principles and approaches developed outside the humanitarian sector. It considers whether these approaches can be introduced into humanitarian agencies, and presents examples of successful organisational change programmes from NGOs, the UN, donor agencies and the Red Cross movement.

What follows is not intended as an instruction booklet or ‘how to’ guide for organisational change. There is great variety among the actors who make up the humanitarian sector, and we would look in vain for a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for organisational change (Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers, 1998). Instead, this study presents some approaches to thinking about organisations and how they change, and shows how these approaches have been implemented.

Access the chapter via Reliefweb.

IOM Migration Research Series No. 33: Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows

This paper is concerned with the question of trying to further the understanding of how different types of shocks and stresses caused by climate change influence different types of migration. The relationship between climate change and migration is currently a topic of great interest as the ongoing “environmental refugee” debate demonstrates. Proponents of the concept of “environmental refugees” argue that climate change will increase the severity and the frequency of extreme weather events, which will in turn cause the displacement of the majority of the population of affected areas. As a consequence, hundreds of millions of “environmental refugees” from vulnerable regions all over the world are expected to seek refuge in wealthier countries.

This approach is potentially misleading for a number of reasons. First, the consequences of changes in climate patterns are diverse, ranging from slow-onset phenomena such as rising sea levels and melting glaciers, to increased extreme events that occur suddenly, and at variable intervals such as tropical cyclones and floods. It is likely that these heterogeneous manifestations of climate change will affect people’s livelihoods in different ways. Second, people might make use of a variety of different coping strategies in response to these different shocks and stresses. It is not clear whether and under what conditions migration is one of them. Third, migration decisions are complex with respect to destination, length of stay, and the profile of migrants. In addition, migration itself is a multi-causal phenomenon, making it difficult to isolate climate change related factors from other factors that cause people to move.

Access the paper via Reliefweb.