KK in Addis Ababa for HIV/AIDS indaba
FIRST republican president, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, yesterday joined leading members of the global HIV/AIDS community and African NGOs meeting in Addis Ababa to discuss the impact of HIV/AIDS on the African rural population and the pandemic’s effect on food security. The meeting which was held parallel to the fourth African Development Forum (ADF iv), was convened by the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA), a body set up last year to track the long term impact of the pandemic in Africa.
Dr Kaunda together with the former prime minister of Mozambique, Pascoal Macumbi are the patrons of the commission.
The interactive Ethiopian session meeting was the third in a series of five regional meetings the Commission would organise across the continent and focused on the way rural communities were being affected by HIV/AIDS.
The meeting also focused on the specific pressures experienced by women, ways to mitigate the problems and discussed the problem of maintaining food security in the context of severe HIV/AIDS epidemics.
A scholar from Makerere University in Uganda, Joseph Tamushabe, said the state of governance in Africa and its effects on resource allocation towards rural areas was worsening the HIV/AIDS impact.
Mr Tamushabe said there was need to study and map out interlocking vulnerabilities at all levels through re-designing programmes in food security, poverty alleviation and HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment, to prevent HIV/AIDS-affected households from sliding into destitution and risk of starvation.
He said rural farming households should be motivated through training and education to analyse their situations, find solutions that they can implement by themselves.
[Zambia Daily Mail]
