Aid package to Africa needs greater substance

Lord knows Stephen Lewis has been powerful while nudging Canadian audiences and Stephanie Nolen has been hammering away from the pages of The Globe and Mail.

Three years ago Canada appeared to be a leader on the international stage when it passed a law intended to make essential, generic medicines available in poor and middle-income countries where there is no generic manufacturing industry. So why have no affordable, lifesaving drugs been getting to developing countries?

The 28 million people living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening conditions can’t wait any longer for affordable, generic versions of these medications.

This country's Access to Medicines Regime doesn’t work. Since the legislation passed in 2004, not a single pill has left Canada. The drug order process (a.k.a. red tape) is taking far too much time and effort to be effective.

Women dying in their living rooms "We've tried to use the Regime, but the simple fact of the matter is there's too much red tape tying our hands," Carol Devine of Médecins Sans Frontières has said. "What's needed now is a simpler, more straightforward process that gets cheaper, generic versions of brand-name drugs moving from Canada to patients in developing countries."

Last week, at a press conference, Devine said, "I worked in Rwanda, Sudan, East Timor and Peru and I've seen first-hand, and it has been painful to see, the effect of monopoly pricing of medicines. “I've watched women younger than me dying in their living rooms with their children around them because they lacked access to medicine that’s widely available in Western countries."

She and Richard Elliott of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, proposed amendments to the regime while testifying at a Commons committee.

It’s unconscionable that since the day our elected representatives passed this legislation close to six million people have died of AIDS-related causes. More than 8.6 million women, men and children have become infected with HIV/AIDS. This is morally wrong. The law is now under review and, according to Make Poverty History, the government must report to Parliament later this month.

The fight against AIDS and the struggle against poverty are linked intimately so I would like to suggest we all send a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and let him know we want him to fix Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. You can send your comments by e-mail to pm@pm.gc.ca or write or fax the Prime Minister’s office at: Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ont., K1A 0A2 fax: 613-941-6900. Postage is free when it's going to Parliament Hill.

To be fair, most countries in the G-8 group of industrialized nations have fallen behind the commitment at the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double aid to Africa by 2010, according to a report released by the advocacy group DATA. The G8 leaders had agreed to an immediate doubling of aid to Africa to $50 billion annually in order to fight poverty and disease on the continent. The final summit communique officially endorsed a $50 billion debt relief plan on behalf of the world's 18 poorest nations and an agreement to provide universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

Less than half

The DATA report found that seven G8 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S. -- have increased aid to Africa by less than half of the amount needed to reach the goal set at Gleneagles. Canada's aid to Africa has increased by 25 per cent since 2004, a rate that would not double aid by 2010.

In total, aid to Africa increased by $2.3 billion in the last three years, but the Gleneagles promise should have increased aid by $5.4 billion, according to Reuters. DATA co-founder and Irish musician Bono reacted by stating the obvious; G8 countries should not be permitted to forget the commitment made at Gleneagles.

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to make aid to Africa a strong focus of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, scheduled to take place from June 6-8. "The issue of Africa will be a particular focus," Merkel said, adding, "we know that we can really help (Africa) with our resources ... and we want to show to this continent our understanding of freedom, justice and solidarity is not limited to us, but goes for the whole world."

Time will tell, I guess. The DATA report included Germany as one of the countries with a "crisis of credibility" when it came to honouring its 2004 commitment.

Meanwhile, Stephen Lewis has raised a different army to fight for Africa's future; an army of grey-haired old women. The Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign seeks to raise awareness and mobilize support in Canada for Africa's grandmothers raising their orphaned grandchildren.

Since March of last year, 120 groups have formed across the country. I expect every one of them has already written Stephen Harper. Don't forget to add your voice.