UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years240Malawian nurse Mary Ntata described the staff problem 26 : “There are enoughantiretroviral drugs … but not enough staff to administer the drugs. … nurses dispensethe drugs from 7am but many of those [patients] who have been waiting through thenight are turned away”. Diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections,prevention of mother-to-child transmission, condom distribution, counselling andtreatment of opportunistic infections are not widely available to a great number ofMalawians due to the lack of infrastructure and skilled health workers 27 .In order to resolve this crisis, an innovative human resources programme for the healthsector was adopted and has seen encouraging results (see Chapter 7 for details). AIDSmoney will help to develop the health sector generally, as expanding the number ofhealth professionals has implications not only for AIDS patients but also for thosesuffering from other diseases.Malawi’s exceptional response to AIDSMalawi has been responding to AIDS in the health sector but it has also prepared plansfor action in other areas. For example, Malawi’s HIV and AIDS Strategy and Plan of Actionin the Education Sector was launched in February 2005, and recently, the government hasfirmly placed the issues of nutrition, HIV on the national development agenda throughthe creation of the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS in the Office of thePresident and Cabinet.Furthermore, the UN in Malawi has also been assisting Malawian activists to redressthe pre-existing societal inequalities that drive AIDS, such as gender-based powerimbalances. Joyce Banda, an activist who has created many networks and associations tohelp other women achieve financial independence and break the cycles of abuse andpoverty, received funding from the United Nations Population Fund at various timesin her career to carry out her work. Joyce Banda has also fought for policy change.From 1999 to 2007, she, other Malawian activists and staff members at UNFPA officein Lilongwe campaigned for better laws to protect women against violence at home. InMay 2007, the Malawi Government finally responded to their demands and passed theDomestic Violence Bill. Said a Malawian participant at a Committee on the Eliminationof Discrimination Against Women meeting: “The Domestic Violence Bill counters onceand for all the contention that what happens in a family is purely a private matter”. JoyceBanda eventually became Minister of Gender and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In herclosing remarks to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Womenmeeting on 19 May 2007, she said that “… just a few years ago it would have beenunimaginable to have a Government Ministry headed by a woman or a human rights lawinvolving women’s rights being passed in the country” 28 .26Malawi Country Profile. www.Avert.org.27Malawi Country Profile. www.Usaid.org.28United Nations (2007). Press Release, 19 May 2007. WOM/1560. Department of Public Information. Geneva,United Nations.