AusAID support for North- East India

[Guest guest]

Dear EFORUM readers

Frederic Bourdier has made some extraordinary

statements in response to the first posting about

NACO declining the $20 million grant project for

HIV/AIDS prevention and care -- " Tale of Overseas

Aid " -- which I can only assume is because he does

not know enough about the project and how it was

developed.

First of all the Australian government did not

arbitrarily choose to develop an AIDS program in

North-east India. It was invited to do so by NACO

and presumably the government of India, primarily

because the government of Australia has supported a

Local NGO in Manipur over a three year period to

mount a very successful response to HIV among

injecting drug users. This project called SHALOM has

become something of a model for wholistic AIDS

responses in North-east India and has been funded by

NACO through the state government for past two

years. NACO and the Manipur state government were

(and presumably still are) very pleased with SHALOM

and hence the invitation to the Australian

government to support other programs in the

North-east states.

The second point to note is that far from the

Australian government imposing a project which was

not in line with the policies of the government of

India, this project was developed to complement the

current national plan which is funded by the World

Bank loan. The project was developed over a period

of several months and included a number of steps.

The first was a situation analysis in the four

states proposed -- Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and

Delhi --which was conducted by Indians and involved

about 150 people from a variety of sectors at both

state and national levels. During the second stage,

a series of planning workshops were conducted in all

four states using the situation analysis as the

basis for the plans. About 160 people were involved

in these planning workshops, including NACO, State

AIDS Control societies, and NGOs in all the states.

The nature of the project which evolved from each

state was distinct because it was based on the

specific risk situations there. The common factor in

each state project was that it complemented existing

plans. Given that NACO was involved in all stages of

the project development, I am quite baffled at their

withdrawal of support at this final stage

The third point I will like to make is that a number

of very dedicated, concerned people from all the

states participated in the design of project and

they communicated the urgent need to respond to the

AIDS epidemic in all three states. In particular,

the government and NGOs in Manipur recognised that

they were in the middle of an epidemic which is

rapidly spinning out of control and need to ACT NOW.

What ever the government of India decides to do with

the offer of the grant from Australia, they cannot

procrastinate on providing more support to Manipur

than they are currently doing. More and more people

are becoming infected every day and the need for

providing care for those already infected is also

increasing. I am sure AIDS Treatment forum readers and the

government of India would agree that the needs of

people infected with HIV and those at high risk of

infection are paramount and should be the primary

deciding factor in deciding what to do with this

proposed Australian government-funded project.

Finally, the issue Mr Bourdier raised about the

Indian government launching a programme among

Australian Aborigines is just plain silly and is

best ignored. But I am sure the Australian

Federation of AIDS Organisations will be happy to

inform Mr Bourdier and any other interested parties

about the HIV/AIDS response among the indigenous

people in Australia.

Tamara Kwarteng

Macfarlane Burnet Centre

E-mail kwarteng@...

--------------------------------------------------------

- A cross posting from sea-aids@...