Manifestos on HIV and Aids

Parties have launched their manifestos with much pomp and flair. Manifestos are political parties’ declarations of intentions, motivations and views. Sadly, political parties that win elections cannot be taken to task on not implementing the said intentions but conversely, manifestos can be ambitious. What are political parties’ intentions on the management of HIV and Aids?

I conducted a global search of the words HIV or Aids in the manifestos of MCP, DPP and PP. Unfortunately, I could not get a copy of UDF’s manifesto but looked on their website in the section “What we stand for”, although I am not sure how up-to-date their webpages are.

MCP: The only mention of HIV in MCP’s manifesto is in the section health and population policy—“Recognition of the seriousness of the HIV and Aids pandemic as a medical, economic, political and social crisis. Particular emphasis will be applied to treatment, prevention of new infections and transmission from mother to child.”

DPP: In the DPP manifesto HIV and Aids appears in a number of sections – health, integrated rural development and fiscal policy. There is some overlap with MCP manifesto – “… will treat the HIV and Aids pandemic as a medical crisis, an economic crisis, a political crisis and a social crisis.” DPP lists three specific issues: (i) provision of free ARVs and economically empowering people to buy drugs and healthy food; (ii) free distribution of ARVs and encouraging VCT; (iii) intensify public awareness on HIV amongst youth and people in rural areas. They go further to state they will provide financial support to elderly people looking after orphans whose parents have died of Aids and will introduce an HIV levy to generate revenue.

PP: PP plans to “enhance and accelerate therapeutic and preventive management of malnutrition, HIV and Aids in collaboration with local and international development partners” and “scale-up the new ART regimen to all beneficiaries.”

UDF: UDF website has a number of motherhood statements about reducing infections, improving care, counselling, promoting education and behaviour change. They will also “use the government manufacturing rights …to increase access to HIV and Aids drugs and essential drugs to reduce the alarming death rate”.

The MCP manifesto is the only one to clearly stipulate mother to child transmission, however, it is weak on strategic directions. There is some redundancy and confusion in the DPP manifesto on free drugs and empowering people to buy drugs. The manifesto could have been improved by suggesting how they would upscale and ensure access to effective treatment under best practice international recommendations.

PP has a very global statement that does not provide practicable action. UDF’s strategic direction on government manufacturing is welcoming as an approach to improve affordability and access to ARVs.

We don’t elect political parties solely on their intentions for managing Aids but since Aids has serious implications on all sectors of society and the economy—health, education, youth, gender… shouldn’t political parties pay more attention in developing robust HIV and Aids policies and programmes.