What kind of Politicals implications are takeing place on Aids epidemic in Africa?

Answer 1

AIDS in Africa. The 3 scenarios.
This book is about AIDS and
Africa, and the world’s response to
both, and presents three stories
describing possible futures.




If, by 2025, millions of African people are still
becoming infected with HIV each year, these
scenarios suggest that it will not be because there
was no choice. It will not be because there is no
understanding of the consequences of the
decisions and actions being taken now, in the
early years of the century. It is not inevitable.
As these scenarios demonstrate, it will be
because the lessons of the first 20 years of the
epidemic were not learned, or were not applied
effectively. It will be because, collectively, there
was insufficient political will to change behaviour
(at all levels, from the institution, to the
community, to the individual) and halt the forces
driving the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
What we do today will change the future.
These scenarios demonstrate that, while
societies will have to deal with AIDS for some
time to come, the extent of the epidemic’s
impact will depend on the response and
investment now. Applying and sustaining the
learning of the last 20 years will make a
fundamental difference to Africa’s future.
Hundreds of people have contributed to
building the scenarios in this book. The project
has been grounded in a dedicated group of
participants from all walks of life, mostly
Africans living and working in Africa, who are
involved in responding to HIV and AIDS, living
with HIV, and dealing with the impacts of AIDS.
Their efforts have been supported and
supplemented by analysis and comments from
other experts in a variety of fields, along with
writers and artists, and the contributions of
many supporting institutions.
The nature of the scenarios
Each of the three scenarios describes a different,
plausible way in which the AIDS epidemic could
play out across the whole of the African continent.
They are rigorously constructed accounts of the
future that use the power of story-telling as a
means of going beyond the assumptions and
understandings of any one interest group, in order
to create a shared basis for dialogue and action
about critical and difficult issues.
The epidemiological descriptions are explicitly
not projections of what will happen. Rather, each
scenario is illustrated by a model, based on one of
three assumptions:
1. ‘Traps and legacies’ extrapolates
current trends until 2025.
2. ‘Tough choices’ applies the trajectory
of the most successful response to
date (Uganda), adjusted for respective
national levels of the epidemic.
3. ‘Times of transition’ illustrates what
might occur if a comprehensive
prevention and treatment response
were rolled out across Africa as
quickly as possible.
Each scenario is also illustrated by regional
epidemiological stories.
Similarly, the HIV- and AIDS-specific
programme costs of each scenario are illustrative,
and have been costed using the knowledge that
has been built up over the last decade about the
relationship between interventions and outcomes.
These costs are also presented regionally.
The scenarios aim to go beyond a description
of current events and to uncover some of the
deeper dynamics that prompt the spread of the
epidemic. These play out in three different ways in
the three different scenarios.


The scenarios
The scenarios initially set out to answer one
central question: “Over the next 20 years, what
factors will drive Africa’s and the world’s responses
to the AIDS epidemic, and what kind of future will
there be for the next generation?” In answering
this question, the scenarios pose two related
questions: “How is the crisis perceived and by
whom?” and “Will there be both the incentive and
capacity to deal with it?” The responses to these
questions lead us into the three scenarios:
• Tough choices: Africa takes a stand;
• Traps and legacies: The whirlpool;
• Times of transition: Africa overcomes.