from the Financial Gazette... a weekly newspaper in zimbabwe

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=2031


Forget about hunger, Zimbabweans just love sex
*Charles Rukuni Bureau Chief *
**
*BULAWAYO — Forget about rampant inflation, high unemployment, or the fact
that more than one million people need food aid. *

Forget that you are lucky to live beyond 34. Zimbabweans just love sex. That
is the impression one gets when one looks at the amount of money being
poured into HIV/AIDS when an estimated 1.4 million are said to have no food.

The major food
donor, the World Food Programme, last month said it might cut down on the
number of people it was feeding because it did not have enough food for an
estimated 1.4 million hungry people until the end of March next year when
the current season's harvest is expected to start rolling in.
It said that it would require US$16 million to purchase 26 000 tonnes of
grain needed to meet the anticipated shortfall.
At about the same time, Britain said it
had awarded 20 million pounds (US$38.7 million) to Zimbabwe to fight the HIV
and AIDS epidemic.
The disease currently affects 1.8 million people. The money would be used to
distribute more than 250 million condoms through 700
hair salons over the next five years. International Development Secretary
Hilary Benn was quoted as saying: "People should not die because they have
sex."
As if to support the appropriateness of the donation, The Sunday Mail
reported that Zimbabwe led the world in the use of condoms. Some 163 million
male condoms and 3.8 million female condoms — the highest in the world — had
been sold in Zimbabwe over the past five years.
While the HIV/AIDS epidemic has devastated the country, Zimbabwe is now
reportedly winning the war against HIV/AIDS. Prevalence is reported to have
declined to 18.1 percent from over 30 percent at one stage.
But some 3 200 people are still reportedly dying each week, a figure
controversial Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube says is higher than the
deaths in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
This has prompted some AIDS activists to question why so many people are
still dying while the prevalence rate is reportedly declining. Others are
questioning the efficacy of aid, who this aid actually benefits, and who
determines who needs what.
South African AIDS activist, Theo Smart, in an article entitled: Zimbabwe
observes a reduction in HIV prevalence, but why said while there had been a
substantial reduction in national HIV prevalence, it could not all be
attributed to the ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms). The extremely
high mortality rate could also have contributed greatly to the reduction in
prevalence, he argued.
"Mortality plays more than one part in this, because it doesn't only
decrease prevalence directly, it can decrease incidence as well, by
decreasing the pool of infectious individuals who can spread the
infection," Smart argued, citing several case
studies that were released at the 2006 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting
of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that was held in Durban
early this year.
"This is particularly the case when most of those who have died are men
because infected men are much more likely than women to spread the infection
to more than one partner."
He also said Zimbabwe's economic decline over the past seven years could
have played a part.
"The collapsing economy could have additional effects that could decrease
mobility, and therefore risk of HIV infection," he said. "Unemployment has
sky-rocketed in Zimbabwe, and there have been major fuel shortages."
"The commercial mining sector has collapsed, and factory work has
evaporated. Cities no longer offer much work. So as a result of Zimbabwe's
economic contraction, many of the old hotspots for HIV transmission — near
the factories and mines, at truck stops along the highway — could be
dwindling or people no longer have a reason or the means to go there . . .
"It's important to remember that this is, after all, Zimbabwe. Since the
year 2000, Zimbabwe's economy has ground to a halt; the country suffered
from floods, followed by severe drought and endemic food insecurity. In this
context it is odd, to say the least, that the official mortality rate
reportedly peaked before all that trouble began. But even if famine and
inflation didn't increase the numbers of people dying, the calamity would
have increased the costs of caring for a person with HIV tremendously."
Smart argued that the stigma attached to people with HIV/AIDS was an
effective deterrent on its own as people with HIV/AIDS had been variously
described as being "in the departure lounge", or having "crossed the red
robot" or "bewitched by goblins". These were all things very few people
wanted to be associated with and therefore would not take that route.
He, however, stressed that this was not to say that ABC strategies did not
work. But a balanced prevention campaign was needed.
Those who argue that aid is not working in Africa, even in the case of Aids,
said most of the money reportedly being poured into the disease was
trickling back to the donor countries.
Michael Holman, former Africa editor of the Financial Times said in an
article in The Africa Report of last month that the irony about the aid
industry into Africa was that an estimated US$4 million was spent annually
to recruit 100 000 expatriates while at the same time about 70 000 skilled
Africans such as doctors, nurses and engineers, left to work abroad.
"The multi-billion dollar aid industry has largely failed in Africa. Not
only have they failed along with others in the aid industry, most
nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have become part of the problem," he
wrote. "Not that they will admit their failure. They refuse to share the
blame for the grim record. Instead they have closed ranks - along with UN
development agencies and bilateral agencies — and all sing from the same
hymn sheet: 'Aid works', they claim. 'Give us even more money and we will
complete the job . . ."
A British-based non-governmental organisation, Action Aid, painted an even
grimmer picture. It said of the US$79 billion aid that was meant for Africa
this year, US$37 billion was "phantom aid" which meant that it was not
genuinely available to the countries which were supposed to benefit. It said
too much aid continued to be haphazardly allocated with little reference to
need. It was tied to requirements that it be spent on donor countries' own
companies. It was double counted as debt relief, or was lost through
cumbersome and poorly coordinated procedures and systems.
Condoms available in Zimbabwe, for example, are "specially imported" from
Britain by an American organisation Population Services International.
Action Aid said about two-thirds of aid from the world's biggest donor, the
United States, was phantom aid. In Zimbabwe, most of the programmes being
sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
are implemented by United States-based organisations such as the Futures
Group, the Centres for Disease Control, Population Services International,
the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation and John Snow Inc.
"Too much (aid) continues to be identified, designed and managed by donors
themselves, (is)tied to donor countries' own firms, (is) poorly coordinated
and based on a set of often untested assumptions about expatriate expertise
and recipient ignorance," Action Aid said. As a result, this aid was often
overpriced and ineffective "and in worst cases destroys rather than builds
the capacity of the poorest countries".
Social commentator Claude Mararike agreed. Zimbabweans had to realise that
the West had its own agenda which was not necessarily that of Zimbabweans
and should therefore question what was in it for those countries that
provided aid to the country, he said.
"Anyone who puts his or her money into any activity, gets mileage from that
activity," he said. "Governments in Europe have always been interested in
numbers in Africa and to some extent Asia. How are they increasing? What is
the mortality rate and so on? The question is resources. The fewer the
people in Africa, the better for Europe."
"People must realise that our survival is more important than sex.
Munozofunga the sex madya (You will only think about sex after eating)," he
said.