AIDS Accountability International rates governments on commitments they have made to respond to the AIDS epidemic
NAIROBI (TrustLaw) – When 11-year-old Nkosi Johnson stood in front of 20,000 delegates at the International AIDS Conference and asked the government to start providing anti-retroviral drugs to mothers and children, South Africa's president at the time, Thabo Mbeki, was so embarrassed he walked out.
Not only was Mbeki criticised when he publicly questioned the widely accepted link between the HIV virus and AIDS in 2000, but his government was reluctant to supply the drugs at state hospitals, saying they were too expensive and toxic.
As a result, critics say, 5,000 babies were being born with the deadly virus every month in South Africa.
Johnson was one of those children.
While Mbeki was shamed, another man in the audience was inspired.
Rodrigo Garay, now the executive director of AIDS Accountability International (AAI) – a member of TrustLaw Connect, the free service connecting legal needs with pro bono expertise – was taken back to his own childhood.
As the son of a political refugee, Garay spent his teenage years trying to escape the reach of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. The family moved first to Romania and then later to Sweden.
"I had to be a grown up and I was a child," said Garay, explaining how he had to translate for his parents in their newly-adopted homeland. "When I met Nkozi Johnson, I saw this happening again."
He felt that Johnson, like himself, was a victim of unaccountable leaders.
"I said to myself: 'Why is a child at this opening ceremony talking about leadership when none of the grownups are?' "
COUNTRY SCORECARDS
Five years later, in 2005, Garay founded AAI which has offices in Stockholm and Cape Town.
Having worked as an insurance broker, Garay felt that leaders, like Mbeki, could be pushed to act if they were being watched and ranked by an independent outsider.
"In the financial sector, rating institutions have a huge influence," he said. "Ratings, if they are well done and well utilised, will force leaders to focus and take action. There is a consequence because you are measuring what they are doing."
By publishing country scorecards, AAI aims to provide research that allows activists to hold leaders accountable for the public commitments they have made on HIV/AIDS. Each year, it focuses on one aspect of governments' response to the pandemic.
The initial results were surprising.
AAI's findings exposed the hypocrisy of Western donor governments which demanded accountability from African governments but failed to show full transparency themselves.
"The ones that were reporting best were the countries in the global south," Garay said.
Transparency has since improved, with the number of countries submitting HIV/AIDS data to the United Nations up to 182 from 147 between 2008 and 2010.
"We know that some governments have changed their behaviour in terms of reporting to the U.N. system after our criticism," Garay said.
He believes rigorous reporting is vital to ensure the continued flow of money into HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.
"In light of the financial crisis, a lot of governments in the global north may not be able to continue or scale up their financial commitments for universal access in HIV/AIDS," he said.
International funding for HIV/AIDS fell for the first time in 2009. There is a shortfall of $10 billion in the funds needed to achieve universal access to HIV treatment.
"The money issue is vital," he said. "By having good accountability mechanisms and by measuring how the investment in HIV/AIDS is being utilised, you will gain more public support in the global north to continue or increase the response to HIV/AIDS."
(Editing by Katie Nguyen)
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