G8 fail to live up to the promise of Gleneagles

Just 2 years on from promising universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010, the G8 are failing to deliver.

Keep the promise!

If more is not done, by 2010 at least 5 million people will be in urgent need of treatment, but will not be able to access it. In ‘urgent need of treatment’ means that, without treatment, these people are expected to die within a year.

Yet prior to the summit only $10bn of the $18.1 billion UNAIDS says is needed this year had been committed. A big increase in funding is desperately required to improve health infrastructure, recruit more health workers and fund prevention, treatment and care programmes.

The 60 billion dollar question

In this context, media reports from the G8 celebrating $60 billion promised for AIDS, TB and Malaria, and strengthening health systems sounded like good news. Unfortunately, the real story is rather different.

• The majority of this $60 billion is not new money, but old promises wrapped up in new packaging. Oxfam estimates that it means, at most, an extra $3 billion extra aid in 2010 — leaving overall aid £27 billion short of what the G8 in 2005 promised to deliver.
• The $60 billion is promised only “over the coming years” - wording so vague it is almost meaningless — and which suggests an attempt to backtrack on the 2010 promise.
• The United States’ funding plans indicate that its $30 billion share will be delivered over the next five years, with the final instalment in 2013 — three years later than the universal access target.
• Yet by 2010 UNAIDS estimates that at least $23 billion will be needed each year for AIDS alone. $60 billion, delivered over 5 years, provides just $12 billion a year for AIDS - and TB, Malaria, and health systems — clearly a woefully inadequate amount.

Progress for the Global Fund?

However, the G8 did promise to treble the size of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria by 2010. In September we will have an opportunity to hold them to this promise - when donors attend the Global Fund’s Replenishment Conference.

P&Pers kept an eye on the G8 in 2005. We’re still watching…

No action on drug prices

Extra money will not go far if the price of drugs continues to rise. The World Health Organisation recently warned that “the demand for expensive second-line regimens will continue to increase. Unless prices for second-line regimens fall significantly, budgetary constraints may put treatment programmes at risk.” Yet this summit G8 did little to address the problem. A large section of the text focused on strengthening intellectual property rules in emerging economies. If these measures are put into place they threaten the supply of cheaper drugs.

Backtracking on the promise itself?

In 2005 the G8 promised to “Implement a package for HIV prevention, treatment and care, with the aim of as close as possible to universal access to treatment forall those who need it by 2010.” This year, the G8 still have not set out a plan for how universal access will be achieved, and instead talk of what they will ‘contribute’ to this goal. On the basis of the promises in this communique, it seems they don’t intend to contribute a great deal.

Scale up, not give up!

This sort of betrayal can make it all seem fairly hopeless, but there are lots of reasons not to give up.

Unfortunately, we’re not going to get the resources and the changes in international policy we need without the G8 countries. We need action fast, so we can’t ignore them. Public pressure is still extremely important.

• Without campaigning, the situation would look a lot bleaker. In January we were worried that AIDS wasn’t even going to form a big part of the G8’s agenda. In the end, eight pages of the communique were devoted to the issue. Although they didn’t do as much as we wanted, the issue was a major focus of this year’s G8.

• Campaigning made sure the UK government argued to strengthen the final agreement. A few days before the summit, it looked like the G8 were going to backtrack on their promises even further - a leaked draft of the final communique contained a target of only 5 million worldwide on treatment by 2013. The day before he went to the Summit the prime minister promised Parliament that “We are trying to strengthen that language and put in some specifics, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS treatment”. Last minute negotiation saw the final version reworded to commit to 5 million receiving treatment in Africa ‘over the coming years’, as ‘an important step towards universal access’. If this promise was delivered by 2010 (on an optimistic reading of ‘the coming years’) 5 million in Africa could be close to the G8’s economic ‘fair share’.

• Our progress this year with the UK government gives us a good basis to build on. Elsewhere there are also some promising opportunities. For example, Germany has shown more willingness to act this year, and the forthcoming elecion in the United States offers a good chance of some changes in policy and more funding. There are also plenty of opportunities for the UK to have an impact outside of the G8. For example, Unitaid, the International Drug Purchase Facility set up last year with France, Norway, Brazil and Chile, could be an important mechanism for bringing drug prices down. As the United States does not participate in Unitaid, it would be unable to block decisions it did not agree with.

• There are millions of lives at stake. The G8’s failure is a reason to scale up our campaigning, not give up in despair.

“It is simply unconscionable for the G8 to be so recklessly cavalier about human life. They have it within their grasp to guarantee full universal access by 2010; if they wanted it to happen, it would happen. They similarly have it within their capacity to guarantee every penny required by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, but instead they merely acknowledge the financial targets which the Global Fund has recently set. In a highly provocative fashion, the G8 is challenging all of us: we, collectively, have to find a way to force the G8’s hand, to pummel them into sanity.” Stephen Lewis, former UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS, delivering his verdict on the G8

Read the G8 Summit documents.