70 campaign partners came together in South Africa in January to confirm their commitment to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS on persons with disabilities in Africa – and to launch the Africa Campaign on Disability and HIV & AIDS. So what has happened since then?

In Uganda the Disability Stakeholder's HIV/AIDS Committee, a Coalition of over 15 Disabled Persons’ Organisations, met with the Parliamentary HIV/AIDS Standing Committee to discuss the inclusion of disability into national strategies and policies. The meeting was such a success that the disability community will be accorded a Self Coordinating Entity (SCE) status. This means that the disability fraternity will be represented at the highest national HIV/AIDS Committee - the Partnership Committee - to participate in HIV policy formulation and program implementation at the national level.

Also in Uganda; Hon. Nokrach, MP for Persons with Disabilities in Northern Uganda, who was present at the Cape Town gathering, made a statement on the floor of Parliament of Uganda about the Africa Campaign and called upon the Government of Uganda to sign up to the UN Convention.

Soon after the Cape Town gathering the working group on HIV/AIDS and disability within the disability community in Ethiopia met with the national AIDS task force as part of a consultative process initiated by the task force to establish linkages between different constituencies’ issues and HIV/AIDS.

The national efforts have been amazing, as these examples show. And there have been some successes on a continental level too. Soon after the launch, the Secretariat of the African Decade had meetings with UNAIDS Regional Director for West and Central Africa, as well as the Regional Director for Southern and Eastern Africa.

They admitted that UNAIDS have not dealt with disability issues, and now they are showing a keen interest to work together with us to change this. 
 
We are also discussing with African Union’s Health, Labor and Social Affairs departments and the HIV/AIDS portfolio on how to make the AU’s AIDS strategy more disability inclusive and what influence we can have during the African Health Ministries Forum, which happens annually. Furthermore, we are in discussion with various sub-regional structures, urging them to include disability and HIV in their agendas.

As part of their Multi-country HIV/AIDS programme for Africa (MAP), the World Bank is commissioning an in-depth study of existing disability and HIV/AIDS initiatives in African countries. This will result in basic operational guidelines to assist National HIV/AIDS Commissions in including disability-friendly interventions into their strategies and action plans. The study will be carried out with the assistance of local and international consultants in 3 Sub-Saharan African countries. The World Bank has explicitly said that it is envisaged that this study will contribute to the recently launched Africa Campaign on Disability and HIV & AIDS.  

We are also revamping the campaign website. Handicap International have an intern working on this. Please feel free to send her any interesting material on HIV and disability. Her name is Sally Lanar, and she can be reached on ct2@handicap-international.org    

Please continue to keep us updated on your initiatives and successes in relation to the Africa Campaign. We can then share these with others to ensure that duplication is minimized, good practices appreciated and learnt from and resources used efficiently.

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This article was published in Human Rights Africa number 2, 2007.