Norwegian Policy Positions
HIV/AIDS and Development

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is much more than a health problem, it has become a social crisis on a global scale. The impact of HIV/AIDS on social and economic development must be taken into consideration in all development planning and cooperation.

Combating HIV/AIDS requires joint efforts and broad partnerships. Untraditional and creative alliances are needed. In Norway, broad partnerships are being formed with the church, trade unions, the private sector, NGOs, the media, academia, sport and culture, which are being challenged to mobilize their networks at home and abroad in a joint effort to combat HIV/AIDS.

Anne Kristin Sydnes
Minister of International Development

Policy positions to guide Norwegian participation in an intensified effort to combat HIV/AIDS

1. General policy approach

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is much more than a health problem, it has become a social crisis on a global scale. The impact of HIV/AIDS on social and economic development must be taken into consideration in all development planning and cooperation. Development strategies should be assessed in terms of the way they increase or reduce vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. All Norwegian efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS will be aimed at supporting the Global HIV/AIDS Strategy Framework as set out by UNAIDS. Within this framework the following general policy positions are emphasized:

• The epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and its broad implications for development need to be understood in the national and local contexts. Each country needs to develop relevant responses, specific strategies and the capacity to cope with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that are tailored to its own particular situation. Planning for coping with HIV/AIDS must be linked to broader national development planning.

• Strategies to combat HIV/AIDS must include prevention, care and measures to cope with the burden of the epidemic. Each country must establish what is politically and economically feasible in terms of the distribution of resources between the various measures. Particular attention needs to be given to the additional demands that HIV/AIDS places on the already overstretched education and health sectors.

• The links between HIV/AIDS and poverty need to be better understood, and strategies must be developed to address the widening poverty gap, inequities, social exclusion and stigmatization caused by the epidemic.

• The HIV/AIDS pandemic clearly has gender and age dimensions. Women and young girls are especially vulnerable, socially, culturally and biologically. Empowering women and involving men more actively in the effort against AIDS are priority concerns.

• Combating HIV/AIDS requires joint efforts and broad partnerships at the local, national, regional and global levels, with active public-private collaboration and involvement of civil society. Key elements of successful responses include strong national and local political leadership, openness, access to information and broad-based multisectoral efforts.

2. Strategy inputs to policy development

As a donor to multilateral and country-level efforts and as a partner in international policy development, Norway will give special emphasis to:

• Actively pursuing the links between HIV/AIDS and development, including situation analysis and impact assessment of economic and social policies at the country level such as Poverty Reduction Strategies, Sector Programmes, Consultative Group meetings, Round Tables and bilateral consultations.

• Coordinated donor support for national plans and strategies and promoting multi-stakeholder involvement and partnerships with civil society (including the media, NGOs and academia) and the private sector.

• Speeding up and strengthening the implementation of national policies on the ground, with a focus on making districts and neighbourhoods more able to cope and overcome organizational and socio-cultural barriers in order to achieve results.

• Supporting an expanded and better coordinated response by the multilateral system, and engaging in strategic dialogue with individual organizations on how to strengthen their contribution and better utilize their comparative advantages in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

• Promoting and engaging in public-private partnerships at national, regional and international levels, such as the International Partnership against AIDS in Africa (IPAA).

• The empowerment of women and young girls, for example through safeguarding education opportunities, ensuring access to information and means of protection, and promotion of gender equity in social and economic terms.

• Supporting research and development of a vaccine against HIV through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), in close coordination with the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

3. Special focus on intensified efforts

In its development cooperation, Norway will make special efforts in a few selected areas within the broader strategic framework:

• Protecting and empowering children through strategies to prevent mother-

to-child transmission, provision of the life skills needed for children to cope and

protect themselves and measures to ensure protection and care for children orphaned

by AIDS.

• Protecting youth through efforts aimed at reducing vulnerability, changing risk behaviour and providing access to contraception and counselling.

• Encouraging the active involvement of men in the efforts to curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS and promote male responsibility.

• Developing and supporting strategies focussed on the workplace and the working environment in partnership with the business community and trade unions. Given that the majority of men in the worst affected countries work outside the formal sector, special efforts are needed to reach this target group.

• Counteracting social exclusion and stigmatization caused by the pandemic and engaging in action to ensure that the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS are fully respected.

• Seeking to make opportunities for treatment more affordable and available by promoting international rules for pharmaceutical products that enable countries to negotiate fair licensing agreements and subsidies.