The OPEC Fund has pledged its support to the global fight against HIV/AIDS with the establishment of a Special Account to help finance operations aimed at addressing the pandemic. Authorization for the Account, which has an initial allocation of $15 million, came from the Ministerial Council at its annual meeting in Pörtschach, Austria, in June. In a statement, Council Chairman, HE Dr. Yousef H. Al-Ebraheem, Finance and Planning Minister of Kuwait, remarked that the decision had been inspired by a deeply felt obligation to help alleviate the threat of HIV/AIDS "before humanity faces another plague."

The launch of the Account comes at a time when worldwide concern is growing over the stubborn spread of the virus, which has so far infected some 56 million people and claimed the lives of an estimated 22 million, one-fifth of them children. The disease knows no boundaries, but is particularly prevalent on the African continent where over three-quarters of the world's AIDS-related deaths have occurred.

Until fairly recently, AIDS was regarded almost exclusively as a health problem. Today, as the virus intensifies its onslaught, the wider ramifications - economic, social and political - are becoming devastatingly clear. And, as is often the case, it is the poor that are most acutely affected. As households lose their breadwinners and use up meager savings to pay for health care and funerals, untold hardship is forced upon communities already struggling to survive. Indeed, in some countries, conservative estimates indicate that the epidemic has raised poverty levels by 5%.

Impact on development

AIDS reduces growth, weakens governance, destroys human capital, discourages investment and erodes productivity. As such, it is slowly but surely undermining efforts to reduce poverty and improve living standards in the developing regions of the world. Already, it is estimated that the annual per capita growth in half the countries of sub-Saharan Africa is falling by 0.5-1.2% as a direct result of AIDS, a figure that could reach 8% in some of the hardest hit countries by 2010.

For its victims, AIDS preys largely on young men and women - people in the prime of life who make up the productive backbone of society. Their deaths are decimating the labor force, with valuable, skilled employees being lost across all sectors. Many farming families, robbed of able-bodied members, are shifting to crops that are less labor-intensive but also less nourishing. The teaching corps is becoming severely depleted, reducing the quality and efficiency of education systems. And, above all, health services are crumbling as they grapple with an ever-increasing number of patients, yet with fewer health care personnel.

Attempts to contain the spread of the pandemic have met with limited success, with Uganda the only African country to have turned a major epidemic around. Its extraordinary effort of national mobilization pushed the prevalence rate among adults down from around 14% in the early 1990s to 8% in 2000. But this is the exception rather than the rule. Elsewhere in Africa, prevalence rates are in double digits, especially in southern countries of the continent where as many as one in five adults is HIV-positive.

The Fund's intervention

As an institution with an active portfolio in 109 developing countries - almost half of them in Africa - the destructive impact of AIDS features prominently on the OPEC Fund's agenda of concerns. For some time now, the Fund has contributed to the international dialogue on the topic and has lent its support to two major conferences held to broaden awareness and mobilize human and financial resources to fight the disease: the December 2000 African Development Forum on the theme AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge, and the April 2001 African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Illnesses.

For the Fund, establishment of a Special HIV/AIDS Account represents the next, logical step forward. A move that will allow it to consolidate and broaden its intervention in the AIDS arena, and enable it to play a more "hands-on" role in the battle against the disease. In making the shift from dialogue to action, the Fund will be able to channel desperately needed resources into key areas, such as preventative medicine, post-infection care and awareness campaigns.

As it prepares to implement the Account, the Fund is taking care to coordinate its efforts with others, not only to avoid overlap and ensure an effective distribution of resources, but also to tap into the expertise of those more skilled in matters relating to HIV/AIDS. High level discussions have been held with other international organizations already engaged in HIV/AIDS work, among them UNAIDS and WHO, and alliances set up to help identify projects where the Fund's contribution will have the greatest impact.

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