In This Edition
1) Overview
2) Vatican: Condoms
3) Uganda: Newspapers
4) Tanzania: Education
5) Three by Five Update
6) African Union Special Summit
7) Book Review: The African State and the AIDS Crisis
8) Justice Africa Book Launch: AIDS and Power
9) Fellowship Announcement: HIV/AIDS, Health and Social Policy in Africa

Overview

1) The Jacob Zuma rape trial and acquittal has dominated the South African news agenda for several months. Thabo Mbeki had fired Zuma, a senior ANC cadre who spent part of the early-1970s on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, as Deputy President in June 2005 for his complicity in a financial scandal involving his advisor Schabir Shaik. The rape trial came swiftly after the original indictment for corruption, and the issue has become in the eyes of Zuma’s supporters one long conspiracy against the government’s most senior Zulu; and in the eyes of Zuma’s critics one more indication that senior members of the ANC, especially those who have, or have ever had, the support of President Mbeki, can be removed from office but still remain above the law. His immediate reinstatement as Vice-President of the ANC did nothing to appease those who thought that- charges of corruption aside- Zuma had shown little contrition in the courtroom. Anger remains over the case essentially being thrown out because of the unreliability of the plaintiff’s evidence, rather than any demonstration from Zuma (who is no less than a former chair of the South African AIDS Council) that the sex he procured during the incident was consensual.

2) The acquittal has now become a bête noir of the South African and international AIDS movements. In particular, the case has thrown a stark light on the fact that up to 4,000 rapes a day may occur in South Africa, that only a small number get reported to the police, and an even smaller number ever result in successful prosecutions. AIDS activists and women’s
groups feel that that the issue is consciously being ignored in South Africa, as it attacks three perceived weaknesses of ANC-rule: the spread of HIV/AIDS, the high rate of crime, and the gap between the empowerment of black men and black women (especially rural and poor women). It has unfortunately become caught up in the particular politics surrounding Zuma, his personal life, and the upcoming corruption trial (which will be spun by which ever political group feels it has lost as a plot by political opponents) that starts in July 2006. Add into this political storm the fact that Jacob Zuma’s former wife is Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, current foreign minister and former health minister under Nelson Mandela. Dlamini-Zuma received her share of criticism for for not better tackling the rising crisis of HIVAIDS, and for not pushing President Mandela more into confronting the issue while in office (although she was responsible for the major piece of legislation in 1997 that allowed South African pharmaceutical companies to ignore patents in the manufacture of generics.)

3) Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, Professor of Anthropology at the University of KwaZulu Natal, and a keen critic of women’s issues in South Africa, told the GAIN Brief that the effects of this case will play out in both the long and short term. In the short term, there is anger at the perceived indifference and even contempt shown by Zuma as he admitted to having unprotected intercourse with a woman who was HIV-positive; claimed as part of his defence that his accuser was dressed in a sexually provocative manner; and then told the court that he presumed that he had protected himself from the risk of HIV by taking a shower after the incident. In the long term, and more significantly, there is anger at the lack of high-level condemnation of Zuma’s behaviour from any senior member of the Government or of the ANC.

4) This does not speak very well of the ability of the current political class in South Africa to address women’s empowerment, the obscenely high incidence of rape, or the fight against HIV/AIDS. All is not gloom, however, as the Zuma trial is now taken by some to be the perfect issue to highlight the issue of rape in South Africa, and may prove to be the high-profile turning point of the AIDS-movement’s campaign to hold the Government of South Africa accountable over HIV/AIDS and sexual violence. Although it is uncomfortable to think of it as such, this may have been for AIDS activists, in the words of Leclerc-Madlala, “…the right rape at the right time.”

5) The bi-annual International Microbicides Conference was held in Cape Town, South Africa, at the end of April 2006. The main news to come out of the conference is that clinical trials of new microbicides are progressing well, which could result in a successful patent within five to six years. However, this progress is not being matched by infrastructural capacity to manufacture microbicidal products when ready in sufficient quantities, and at affordable cost. This in turn will delay the research and development of such products. In actual fact, the microbicidal uses of such products are not far away from commercial application at all.

6) The greatest problems facing this technology aren’t technical at all. Firstly, use of these products is likely to be held up by both infrastructure and bureaucracy. Use of these products will only work on a large scale if they become as ubiquitous, if not as cheap, as condoms. An effective way of preventing HIV infection that is only available for the African rich has the potential of compounding a situation where ARVs divide communities into pharmaceutical haves and have-nots. The technology, moreover, will only be effective in controlling HIV in a population if available to a large number of people, as HIV will progressively weaken if given fewer chances to infect new hosts. Expensive microbicides available to only a few people may not prove efficacious at all, may in fact aid drug-resistance, and may reinforce a sense of false security.

7) Secondly, microbicides are controversial because they are a female-controlled method of birth control, being as they are also spermicidal. This has created fears of a backlash by religious conservatives (although until such products exist the actual threat may be more imagined than real), who may prevent necessary funding in donor nations, or their distribution or use in recipient nations. All this is occurring as researchers are warning that microbicidal effectiveness can not be taken for granted yet, and the issue is in danger of becoming a political football between religious groups and conservatives on one hand, and liberal groups and feminists on the other, combining as it does issues of contraception, morality, women’s rights and religion.

8) The global campaign to part-finance the Global Fund through an international tax on airline tickets, endorsed by the likes of British Finance Minister Gordon Brown, gathers momentum. It has been given weight by the idea that travelling by air, which is differentially taxed in different countries, can be an effective way of coordinating equitable international fundraising for epidemic disease. It also offers governments the added benefit of being seen as a benevolent tax on air transportation, reinforcing green credentials by making amends for the international aviation rules set out in the Chicago Convention 1947, prohibiting the taxation of aviation fuel (but not at levels that would significantly reduce demand for air travel.)

9) However, the campaign is faced with political difficulties, and chief amongst these is the split between two rival projects. The first, proposed by the British at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005, is the contribution that an airline tax would make to the International Finance Facility; which would invest large sums of money in increasing the value of government bonds on international markets, underwritten by future government aid, and using the profits- tax free- to fund the Global Fund and other financing mechanisms. The second, proposed by an international coalition of governments led by France and Brazil (but, confusingly, at this stage still listing Britain tentatively as a partner), is the Airline Solidarity Contribution (ASC), which would be invested directly in drug purchases through the Global Fund and other systems, initially at $300m p.a. but expanding thereafter. Activists are now calling for the proposals to be united as one so as to avoid a dilution, which they predict will occur if the schemes operate in competition.

10) The main argument put forward by groups such as the Global AIDS Alliance (GAA) (www.globalaidsalliance.org) is that with the largest consumer of civil aviation, the United States, resistant to any levy on airline tickets, any hope of implementing such a successful scheme at the international level (and one that could ultimately shame or convince the US into participating in the scheme) needs to be a coordinated action. Political differences, national pride, and perhaps more insurmountable economic differences, are being blamed by pressure groups for undermining any compromise on an airline ticket levy. This is quite serious for two reasons. Firstly, there is a lot of fear that a fractured system of competing aviation levies will be less than the sum of its parts. Raising $300m p.a. alone from the ASC is no small change, and the IFF has the potential to raise up to $50bn, although there are serious doubts about it being able to do so. Separate levy systems would hinder harmonisation, and allow governments to play one against the other, or refuse to participate without fear of coordinated recrimination. Secondly, as the Global Fund shows, while donors have found it difficult to coordinate international action on HIV/AIDS, they have been more successful at raising large amounts of money through the Global Fund, bilateral sources, and through independent foundations such as the Gates and Clinton Foundations. The aviation levy could have been a relatively simple way to apply a relative international strength- fundraising- to a more important objective: improving the infrastructure of international policy coordination on epidemic disease. Failure to reach a compromise on the levy (especially given the high profile of the issue, and the political difficulty in backing down) could result in a policy coordination failure just at a time when policy coordination is most needed, and in most need of a visible success.
Vatican

11) A very small, but potentially significant, shift in the position of the Vatican on the use of condoms by married couples, may herald the beginnings of a sea-change in attitude among Catholics and other religious groups on the immediate threat of HIV/AIDS. In the Italian weekly l’Espresso, Cardinal Carlo Martini, who is retired Archbishop of Milan and senior in the Catholic hierarchy, came out in April 2006 and endorsed the use of condoms for HIV prevention among married couples. Known to be on the liberal wing of the Church, Cardinal Martini’s remarks have been interpreted by some as the first recognition by the Vatican that
the blanket ban by the Catholic Church on the use of condoms, enforced by Pope John Paul II, may adapt to the reality of HIV/AIDS under the new Pope, Benedict XVI; known to be a conservative, but also with pragmatic tendencies on HIV/AIDS. The Catholic Church, which officially supports the work of UNAIDS and the outcomes of the 2001 UN Declaration of Commitment (although rejecting the ‘holistic’ interpretation of sexual health accepted by both), opposes Condom use for the prevention of HIV/AIDS for four reasons: use of condoms goes against human dignity, by reducing procreation to pleasure; condoms do not guarantee protection against HIV; condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of AIDS; and condoms encourage false security when they are wrongly used.

12) Family Health International (http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/booksReports/latexcondom/pregandstdprev.htm) compiled the results of three separate studies comparing condom efficacy in serodiscordant couples (where one partner at the start of the study is HIV-positive and one HIV-negative) which found that proper and regular use of condoms reduced the chance of HIV transmission within one year to little more than 1%; whereas the chance of transmission for both couples who did not use condoms at all, and for couples who used them irregularly, was above 10% for both groups. On the basis of this evidence- and the mountain of peer-reviewed evidence that sits beside it- the Catholic Church dissembles when it says that condoms do not guarantee protection, when what they do is to reduce risk significantly. The Catholic Church is right to say that the protection afforded by irregular condom use can be shown to have a negligible effect on HIV infection, but this is an argument for more condom use. The Catholic Church is wilfully misleading when it says that condoms may be one of the main reasons for the spread of AIDS, based upon the argument that using them infrequently might create the false impression of reduced risk (successful interventions such as in Uganda, Senegal, Thailand and Brazil have all been based on increased use of condoms, and the Catholic Church has been one of the main opponents of such strategies.)

13) The move is significant for several reasons. First, this represents the first major acknowledgement at the highest levels of the Catholic Church that the previously irreproachable proscription on the use of condoms and other methods of artificial birth control may be assailable. Secondly, it is an acknowledgement that preventing HIV/AIDS- especially in Africa and Latin America where the strongest and most conservative support for the Church remains- has reached a juncture of irresistible moral sense and good politics. Thirdly, it is an important step towards acknowledging the quiet compromises that happen frequently across Africa and Latin America especially, of official condemnation and tacit acceptance of condoms and birth control in regions of high HIV-prevalence and high fertility rates.

14) These are all the more important to acknowledge in the era of PEPFAR, which is portrayed as restricting funds to family planning services, but on implementation often turns a blind eye to services that receive funding for family planning from other sources; and the often overstated media consensus that religious groups- Christians generally, and Catholics and evangelicals in particular- are gaining increasing control over AIDS policy. This ignores many instances of African pragmatism on the issue, which often gets less media attention than pronouncements from the likes of George W Bush or Janet Museveni.

New Justice Africa Research: Ugandan Newspapers

15) Justice Africa continues to produce high-quality applied research on the social effects of HIV/AIDS, produced by Africans and for Africans. Charles Wendo, a Ugandan political scientist and journalist, who for several years was the health correspondent of the national best-selling daily newspaper The New Vision, has completed the fourth and final commissioned research on issues surrounding HIV/AIDS and democracy; a project funded by the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation. The document, ‘Voices of AIDS: News sources and how they differ in what they say as reflected in the AIDS news articles published in The New Vision, Uganda’s leading daily’ builds upon Wendo’s successful work (Wendo, 2003) examining the efficacy of mass-market print media in promoting AIDS prevention messages; and compares this critically against the role of promoting AIDS prevention
methods undertaken by government. It has thrown up some very interesting results on the nature of how information on HIV/AIDS is obtained by the media, how it is interpreted, and how it is consumed.

16) Wendo subjected 488 news articles on HIV/AIDS in the New Vision to a quantitative content analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists, to gauge correlation between news source and subject matter. Interestingly, the most dominant news sources were elected officials at both national and local level; with appointed officials, civil society groups, religious leaders, and donor representatives being cited less often. Prevention was the most talked about subject matter which reflects and confirms the long Ugandan tradition of public openness on HIV/AIDS, with funding and resources, care and support, impact and mitigation and policy and regulation following. The study shows, at the very least, that the difficult and sometimes little understood effort at influencing ‘health messaging’ by elected officials, does seem to be, at least quantitatively, working.

17) What does Wendo’s research contribute to our understanding? Most importantly, it suggests that politicians are still crucial to the information war against AIDS, representing one quarter of all sources (nearly one third of sources if the President is included). The clear implications of Wendo’s study are that the combination of the legitimacy of democratically elected office, and an encouraging but critical mass media (particularly print media), still works to keep HIV/AIDS and health messaging effective in Uganda. However, the study did throw up one trend that depending on one’s point of view lies somewhere between interesting and alarming. The elected official most often cited by newspaper articles was, understandably, the President. Wendo had originally intended that the category of ‘The President’ would include anyone in the Presidency, including Presidential spokesmen and the First Lady of Uganda, Mrs. Janet Museveni. On review of the articles, however, Wendo discovered so many articles attributable to the First Lady that he decided to revise his categorisation to include a separate section especially for Mrs. Museveni. In addition to this, articles citing Mrs. Museveni or her office as a source of information were longer than any of those citing other sources, except for those that cited the President.

18) Mrs. Museveni has had a high profile in recent years as a prominent evangelical Christian, and much of her public comments on HIV/AIDS have reflected an abstinence-only anti-condom bent. Wendo also reflects that a large amount of the messaging on HIV/AIDS is abandoning the ABC approach which has served Uganda so well, and is focusing evermore on abstinence-only prevention; with all of the President’s and First Lady’s comments on condom-use being critical, compared to only 14% among elected politicians as a whole. This represents not only a long known, but recently more vocal, attitude of Mrs. Museveni, but alo a new and more intransigent attitude from a president who came so far and then fell so fast in the eyes of AIDS activists, and did so much to legimitise the Ugandan approach of ABC- Abstinence, Being faithful and using a Condom. It also casts doubt on the view that African pragmatism will outweigh the zeal of abstinence-only advocates.

19) Charles Wendo’s report accompanies this briefing:
Charles Wendo - Voices of AIDS: News Sources and How they Differ in What they Say. Charles can be contacted via: ja@justiceafrica.org

New Justice Africa Research: HIV/AIDS and Education in Tanzania

20) Jon Harle has made a review of the sectoral impact of HIV/AIDS on education in Tanzania, using data supplied by that nation’s Ministry of Education, as well as figures supplied by non-governmental groups. As Harle points out, HIV/AIDS is a poorly tested variable on education and the effects in this sector are as conjectural and as thin as many other sectors. Applying what little is known to Tanzania has confirmed the paucity of information, and reaffirms the need for sound policy making and analysis to be best where possible on empirically-tested evidence. Harle’s approach is useful because it examines the effects on both the demand side of the educational equation – students – as well as the supply side – teachers – so that it is an industrial study rather than just a cohort study. It also addresses the effect of HIV/AIDS on the quality of education in Tanzania, as well just the quantity; asking fundamental questions about what the effects of HIV/AIDS on educational
targets may mean for Tanzania’s political and social development, as well as its economic growth.

21) Although adult prevalence has not reached Southern African levels, Tanzania’s 7% infection rate makes AIDS the largest single cause of adult mortality. Harle finds, however, that contrary to speculation on the extra vulnerability of teachers to HIV-infection, infection rates among Tanzanian teachers did not differ significantly from Tanzanian and regional norms. The number of teachers therefore will not significantly alter relative to the general population, but will fall relative to the expanding number of children. In addition to this, resources for education don’t appear to be forthcoming to make up for increased educational demand to compensate for a declining number of teachers. What there doesn’t seem to be in Tanzania is co-ordination between the various plans or methods to strengthen educational systems (such as reforming recruitment and retention strategies, or in physical improvements to school buildings or equipment) to compensate for increasing teacher/pupil ratios. While Harle shows that teachers are no more likely to be HIV-positive than any other professional group in their typical age cohort, the prognosis for achieving educational targets- and beyond this socio-economic and political targets too- in Tanzania looks strongly compromised by HIV/AIDS. The report accompanies this briefing:

Jon Harle - AIDS, Governance and Quality in Tanzanian Education

Three by Five: Update

22) On the 28th March the WHO released its first progress report following the end of the “3 by 5” campaign in December of last year. It had been clear from earlier figures that treatment would fall short of the ambitious target of treating three million people by the end of 2005– in the end it achieved just under half of this objective. While the failure of the campaign has been criticized, it is also important to recognize that some direct achievements that have been made. Although falling short of the hoped-for three million target, there has been significant and positive progress: 1.3 million HIV positive people in low and middle income countries are now receiving antiretroviral therapy, triple the number who were receiving treatment in December 2003.

23) Globally, treatment has risen from 7% to 20% over the two years of the campaign – a considerable increase, although still below the levels needed (and possible) to curb the epidemic. Such an ambitious goal has also been vital in catalyzing a dramatic increase in international treatment effort, although this increase in international and national activity was itself long overdue. However, the most significant failure is the disparity in treatment coverage. In measuring the relative successes of the campaign, Africa at first glance appears to have achieved much less when compared to Latin America (17% access compared to 68%). However, the epidemic – and thus the challenge posed – in Africa was and is much greater, and pre-campaign health infrastructures, resource capacity and national political commitments were much less developed. In actual fact treatment has expanded more dramatically in Africa than in any other region over the past two years, and the number receiving treatment has risen from just 100,000 in 2003 to 810,000 in 2005. 60% of people now receiving medication worldwide are in Sub-Saharan Africa, while in 2003 the region accounted for just one quarter of ARV recipients.

24) Yet while this represents a significant increase in treatment, Africa’s HIV/AIDS patients receive not only far below what they urgently require, but also receive poorer levels of treatment relative to Africa’s share of the global disease burden. For example, while Latin America and the Caribbean accounts for some 7% of the global ARV need, the region receives 24% of current treatment. In contrast, Africans who account for 72% of those in need of ARV medication, receive just 61% of the world’s treatment, delivered through 35% of the world’s treatment sites. Although half of the “3 by 5” 49 focus countries were African, of the 18 that achieved their target to treat half of those in need, only 3 of these success stories were in Africa. The higher achievement of these countries (Uganda, Botswana and Namibia) was also to be expected since more had already been done to tackle the epidemic prior to the “3 by 5” initiative. As the WHO report rightly notes, progress within Africa has also been uneven. Botswana and Namibia, both countries with high prevalence rates, report treatment coverage of 85% and 71% respectively. Yet South Africa with a 29.5% HIV prevalence and accounting for around a quarter of people in need of medication, has coverage of just 21%; largely because as a Middle-Income Country it qualified for less direct assistance. Some countries with major epidemics have very little access to treatment – Mozambique has an HIV prevalence of almost 15%, and the Central African Republic of almost 14%, but yet have treatment coverage of just 9% and 3% respectively.

25) If treatment is to be successfully expanded to meet future targets, then much more will need to be done. G8 leaders pledged to achieve as near-as-possible universal treatment by 2010, yet to do this will require a co-ordinated effort of an even greater scale. This will include greater national level leadership and political commitment than is currently witnessed, improved mechanisms for funding and delivery, greater efficiency in administration, and a vast increase in the available human resources. Internationally a greater attention to national experiences and constraints is vital, and the lessons of “3 by 5” should prove invaluable to future efforts. While statistics such as those discussed here provide a perspective on current treatment success, a much fuller picture undoubtedly will come from treatment activists and people living with HIV and AIDS across Africa.

African Union Special Summit on AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Abuja 2-4 May, 2006

26) The African Union held a Special Summit at the beginning of May 2006 that brought together African heads of state, ministers of health, as well as activists from across Africa, under the auspices of the Nigerian Chairmanship of the AU, to review African access to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria services following the 2000 Abuja Summit on Malaria; and the 2001 Abuja Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Diseases (ORID) . As both processes set out by these summits had completion dates of 2010; the half-way point has been reached for these African-mandated and African-led initiatives. The summit also served as the forum for the formulation of a joint African policy to take into the June 2006 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS.

27) What will Africans tell the UNGASS in June? Mostly, they will have to report that while Africa’s overall share of the global HIV/AIDS burden has decreased since 2001, the absolute numbers on the continent have remained consistent- with some decline in Southern Africa and some growth in Western Africa. Moreover, Africa’s share of the global burden has decreased due to larger growth in infection rates in Asia and Latin America. On the massive expansion of funding for HIV/AIDS in the last five years, Africa will have to report that this is still not enough to meet the Millennium Development Goal criteria on fighting infectious disease; and that targets to ensure aid effectiveness, drug access, and healthcare infrastructure improvement have not progressed at anywhere near the levels needed to ensure that extra money translates into commensurate decreases in HIV infections and increased levels of people being treated. The major resolution at the end of the summit called for 80% of those in need- including at least that percentage each for women and children- should have access to treatment, care and support. Activists have complained of the wasted opportunity of this summit, because the 80% target, while ambitious, is probably not realistic enough for national governments to take seriously.

28) Previous GAIN Briefs have made the point that progressive sounding resolutions that reaffirm previous ambitious targets over long periods actually weaken AIDS activism, by highlighting that existing agreements haven’t been met, and allowing political leaders to seen to be doing something without having to set realistic, and manageable objectives. As pointed out in this briefing, the Three by Five initiative- which in the run of things has to be given partial credit for increasing numbers in Africa on ARVs from 1% to 17%- didn’t get three million on medication by 2005, but at least set a clear objective over a short timetable, in order to try and give an infrastructural kick-start to treatment access. The Abuja summit, however, merely repeated the shared commitment under the MDGs to devote 15% of national budgets to healthcare. It is already patently clear that a majority of African nations will not reach 15% by 2015, given that less than one third have surpassed 10%, and IRIN News notes that Nigeria, Burundi and Ethiopia, to name three, have only achieved four, three
and two percent respectively in pursuit of this target. Part of the problem is monitoring. With no mechanism or funding for the review of progress on this goal set out at any of the multiple fora that have addressed progress on these commitments, it is unlikely that realistic short-term objectives in treatment access will attract the political will they need, nor the commitment or funds to aid the human and physical infrastructure necessary to meet the goals.

Justice Africa Book Review: The African State and the AIDS Crisis; Amy S. Patterson [ed.], Ashgate Press, Aldershot UK and Burlington VT, USA (2005)

29) This new text, edited by Amy S Patterson, and with contributions from the likes of Robert L Ostergard, Crystal Barcelo, Alan Whiteside and Jake Batsell, provides a notable contribution to the sparse literature on HIV/AIDS within political science. It gets to the very heart of the fundamental theoretical debates within political science on the nature of power, governance, civil society and the state, and puts these into a context through which the effects of HIV/AIDS can be measured. This is a crucial contribution. Large contributions to the social understanding of HIV/AIDS have been made in the fields of economics, anthropology, sociology and even (if you count it as on the boundary between the natural and social sciences) in epidemiology. The response from political science, however has been more muted, with political scientists either happy for political aspects of HIV/AIDS to be discussed within different disciplines, or for detailed analysis to be made in certain sub-disciplines such as conflict studies or development theory. Justice Africa associate Roxanne Rawson has provided a useful and incisive book review of this book, which accompanies this briefing.

Read the full review of “The African State and the AIDS Crisis”

New Justice Africa Book: AIDS and Power by Alex de Waal

30) HIV/AIDS, Africa’s greatest human tragedy for over a century, is an immense challenge to democrats and activists. This book looks at whether governments can survive an epidemic that has cut life expectancy in half, further burdened fragile economies, and created millions of orphans. It explores why, twenty years into the crisis, democratic governments are performing so poorly in tackling the disease. It argues that existing approaches to the epidemic are driven by interests and frameworks that fail to engage with African resilience and creativity. Already, African communities have confounded some of the worst predictions of disaster, and if adequately supported, can find ways of sustaining development and democracy in the midst of HIV/AIDS.

31) Published in the African Arguments series- a collaborative initiative between Justice Africa, The International African Institute, The Royal African Society and Zed Books- AIDS and Power addresses the fundamental questions of how the African state manages ands mediates the political effects of HIV/AIDS. It comes to the important conclusions that African states and societies are often more resilient and adaptive than AIDS activists and the policy community give them credit for, and that AIDS represents a choice for African states between progress and paralysis.

32) ‘AIDS and Power: Why There is no Political Crisis- Yet’ is published by Zed Books. Copies can be ordered from Zed Books

Fellowship Announcement: HIV/AIDS, Health and Social Policy in Africa: A Focus on Gender, Care, and Sexual Violence

33) The Social Science Research Council has announced a new fellowship opportunity for African researchers, policy analysts, program planners and practitioners. Up to eight fellowships will be awarded for health and social policy research in Eastern and Southern Africa on (1) the gender and political economy of care-giving and HIV/AIDS; or (2) sexual violence and HIV/AIDS. Two Senior Fellowships of up to US$25,000 and six Associate Fellowships of up to US$10,000 will be awarded. Applications are due by July 15, 2006. The full Fellowship Announcement, can be viewed at:
www.ssrc.org/programs/HIV/fellowships/ For additional information, please contact the Fellowship Coordinator at hivaids@ssrc.org

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