Press Release

OPEC Fund helps battle HIV/AIDS among refugees in Central Africa

104/2005 September 20, 2005, Vienna, Austria
Press inquiries:

The OPEC Fund for International Development today approved a grant of US$1.5 million to co-finance a project jointly developed by the Fund and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The initiative seeks to provide a full spectrum of HIV/AIDS protection, prevention, care and treatment services to refugees in five central African countries and prepare them for repatriation to their home countries.

Refugees represent a particularly vulnerable segment of the population, coping with poverty, food insecurity and broken families. In addition, access to basic social services is virtually non-existent. Such an unstable environment increases the spread of disease, especially HIV/AIDS, which is emerging as a major threat in refugee camps in Chad, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Also at risk are the surrounding host communities, since many are marginalized and lack sufficient resources and public health interventions.

The OPEC Fund/UNHCR project will target some 670,000 people, three-quarters of them women and children, in camps located in the five selected countries. Activities will include the following: intensifying HIV prevention programs, especially mother-child HIV transmission, through the provision of drugs, medical supplies, educational materials and awareness campaigns; insuring that cost effective and appropriate HIV/AIDS interventions reach refugees and their neighboring populations in an integrated manner; carrying out capacity building measures at UNHCR and its implementing partners by utilizing training courses on program development for HIV/AIDS prevention/control; and, establishing standardized systems for data collection and monitoring.

The OPEC Fund contribution will be drawn from its HIV/AIDS Special Grant Account, which was launched in 2001 with an initial endowment of US$15 million. Subsequent replenishments have boosted the account to US$50 million. Fund-sponsored projects are currently ongoing in all developing regions of the world, in association with lead agencies such as UNAIDS, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Commission for Africa, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.