ActionAid UK
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Insight, debate and campaigning news from ActionAid
Only three short years after the G8 pledged to 'make poverty history,' a global food crisis is making poverty in historically large proportions.
As the G8 leaders gather in Hokkaido, Japan, for this year's summit ActionAid is calling on them to take action on the causes of hunger around the world and reporting back on our progress here.
Watch this space.
It can often make pretty grim reading when AIDS hits the headlines. So I’m delighted to be able to pass on some brilliant news from the UN this week.
With barely a whisper in the media it’s been announced that there are now three million people receiving antiretroviral treatment. That compares to just 200, 000 a few years ago when we started campaigning on this issue.
However, whilst the new figures are great news, a shocking 6 million people still cannot get the drugs they desperately need. Our Invisible Women campaign argues that for the global AIDS response to ensure treatment for all - women’s rights must take centre stage. You can take action today and help ensure a good news story for every one of those 6 million people.
Our Invisible Women campaign reached a high point this week as DFID finally launched it’s new seven year AIDS plan.
The fantastic news is that most of ActionAid’s demands are in there. DFID minister, Douglas Alexander, even wrote in his introduction ‘this document places at its heart the needs and rights of women’ – exactly what we’ve been calling for. Some of the text is so close to what we wanted that we wondered if we’d written it ourselves!
Big things to celebrate include promises to:
• Increase treatment for pregnant women to prevent transmission to their babies.
• Help women caring for orphans and people living with HIV. • Increase by 50% funding for HIV prevention methods women can control, like female condoms.
So is it all good news? The one letdown is that while it ticks all our boxes, the strategy doesn’t set out exactly how DFID will tackle complex, long term issues like violence against women. Without an action plan, Douglas Alexander may find it hard to stick to his word.
Take action now and help us get a strategy that really delivers for women.
Back in February, a band of singing telegrams and I delivered a giant card to International Development top dog, Douglas Alexander. The card called on him to put women’s rights at the heart of his department’s new AIDS strategy. We argued that without this the epidemic could never truly be tackled.
The new strategy was launched this week and we are thrilled to see the effect of our campaigning. Many of the things we were demanding are in there. The link between sending a card to a minister and someone’s life being dramatically improved can often seem obscure. Right now the link is clearer than ever. What Douglas Alexander has promised is a vital first step to securing a better future for countless women in poor countries. We’ll now be making sure his promises make that future happen. You can help us do this right now!
Photo credit: David Rose/ActionAid
The new strategy was launched this week and we are thrilled to see the effect of our campaigning. Many of the things we were demanding are in there. The link between sending a card to a minister and someone’s life being dramatically improved can often seem obscure. Right now the link is clearer than ever. What Douglas Alexander has promised is a vital first step to securing a better future for countless women in poor countries. We’ll now be making sure his promises make that future happen. You can help us do this right now!
Photo credit: David Rose/ActionAid
"Broken promises cost lives". That was the stark message we heard today from Moussa Faye of ActionAid Senegal, as new research shows Europe is failing to meet its aid pledges.
"If you live in Senegal where one in eight children dies before reaching his or her fifth birthday, aid means the difference between life and death" he continued.
On current trends EU governments will have given €75 billion less in aid by 2010 than promised - a shortfall that will have a devastating impact for millions of people living in developing countries.
Here in the UK aid fell by 2% (excluding debt relief) in 2007 - astonishing in the year when Gordon Brown called for governments to tackle the "development emergency".
The good news is that the effectiveness of UK aid continues to improve – thanks in part to ActionAid’s continuing campaigning.
See what happened on the day the report launched here:
Ethiopian activist Berhane Kelkay, one of three inspiring women to feature in our Invisible Women campaign, has also been busy during this year’s Global AIDS Week.
Berhane, who runs NNPWE, the Ethiopian Network of Positive Women, was pictured yesterday at a workshop for journalists, exploring the role that the media can play in holding the Ethiopian government to its commitments on HIV and AIDS. Explaining the situation of Ethiopian women living with HIV, Berhane said:
"In rural areas women are still dying because they cannot access ART, while the hospitals in towns and cities provide ART free of charge. Let’s take the drugs to the women instead of putting the responsibility on women to come to where the drugs are."
In Liberia, representatives of ActionAid partner the Liberian Women’s Empowerment Network (LIWEN) have led campaigning efforts as part of the week of action. LIWEN members Lovetta Warner and Cynthia Gonleh appeared on national Radio Program, Staying Alive, while other women took part in local radio shows around Liberia.
Earlier in the week, LIWEN and another NGO the Light Association organised a candlelit vigil to remember their ‘heroes’ – colleagues who lived positively with HIV but have now died.