Impact of HIV/AIDS Should be Integral Part of Poverty-Reduction Strategies, New Report Says

UNITED NATIONS, New York – With its rapid spread across the world, HIV/AIDS has become as much a threat to overall development as a health issue, with a powerful impact on national economic and social sectors. This makes it essential to integrate responses to the pandemic into all levels of poverty eradication efforts, according to a new report by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

The new publication, The Impact of HIV/AIDS: A Population and Development Perspective , highlights the marked effects of HIV/AIDS on many aspects of our lives. The pandemic has produced lower life expectancy, slower economic growth, increased extreme poverty, and other factors that hamper development. These results are devastating for many societies worldwide, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and also increasingly in the most populous countries, such as China, India and the Russian Federation.

The report underscores the close relation between HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty, gender inequality and other issues vital for the development of high-prevalence countries. About 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and no major region of the world escapes its invasive presence, says the report. However, more than 95 per cent of victims are in developing countries, where life expectancy in the most severely affected areas has dropped by as much as 20 or more years, and millions of children have been orphaned.

The pandemic is forcing families, communities, businesses and governments to invest less in productive activities as people fall sick and others die, and as resources are shifted to care for and treat people living with AIDS, says the report. Societies are losing human and social capital, and often the seriousness of the situation is not recognized, let alone remedied.

This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue unchecked, warns the report, “because it is not only damaging the health and welfare of populations, but is also undermining efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” in particular to halve extreme poverty by 2015. This is why national poverty reduction strategies, says the report, must assess the impact of HIV/AIDS and deal effectively and simultaneously with both poverty and the pandemic.

The report also includes a list of major resources and web sites that help in understanding HIV/AIDS within a development context. Copies of the report can be obtained on request from UNFPA’s Technical Support Division.

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UNFPA is the world's largest multilateral source of population assistance. Since it became operational in 1969, it has provided about $6 billion to developing countries to meet reproductive health needs and support development efforts.

Contact Information:

Omar Gharzeddine
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5028
Email: gharzeddine@unfpa.org