| MARCH 2002 |
It is so great to be back in Uganda. This country holds a very special place in my heart, and I am thrilled that I can be here again. I was here last February, and had the honor of meeting with H.E. President Museveni, who took the time to meet with me despite his very busy schedule during the election campaign.
I also had the opportunity to visit the Mpigi Epicenter, and seeing the great work that the people of Uganda are doing under the extraordinary leadership of Jeanne Gazasira. During that trip, I had the honor of visiting Vice President Dr. Kazibwe's farm and seeing the wonderful program she has created for the youth of Uganda. In addition to being the Vice President of Uganda, Dr. Kazibwe is also on The Hunger Project's Global Board of Directors and a strong advocate for women's human rights. I also participated in the Africa Prize Torch Event where Ruth Namyalo, a Ugandan Food Farmer received the Prize, and this historic moment was witnessed by thousands of people.
Thank you everyone for coming to this historic and strategic meeting. We have with us this weekend a multiplicity of leadership from 8 countries. There are people in the room with an enormous amount of expertise, talent, commitment, and dedication - Hunger Project Country Directors, National Coordinators of the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative, Experts in the field of HIV/AIDS, Family Planning, Public Health, Micro-Credit, Education, Women's Issues, Gender, Population, Agriculture, Economics, Governance, Social Development, Labor, and Media.
Also here with us are: Joyce Mungherera, our 1995 Africa Prize Laureate and the Executive Director of YWCA, and Jonah Gokova, our 2001 Africa Prize Laureate, and the founder of PADARE Men's Forum on Gender. His organization is committed to examining and transforming traditional definitions of masculinity that encourage risky sexual behavior.
A special welcome to the participant observers from Uganda. Leaders from many organizations across Uganda that have played such a important role in Uganda's successful campaigns to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. We are honored to have you all with us this weekend.
It is particularly fitting that we have today's meeting in Uganda. Uganda - along with Senegal - is a country that has taken bold and decisive action to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. President Museveni has fittingly been honored by The Hunger Project as our Africa Prize laureate in 1998 and by the world for his work not only in HIV/AIDS, but also on the inextricably linked issues of women's rights and rural development.
I want to acknowledge all the country directors of The Hunger Project, and the national coordinators of the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative, who are here today - your achievements are truly extraordinary, and The Hunger Project people around the world are very proud of what you are accomplishing. I also want to thank the leaders from the organizations who have joined us for this strategic meeting. No one organization can meet the challenge of hunger, poverty or HIV/AIDS. Only by working together - with a shared vision and shared commitment - can progress truly be made.
Our meeting here in Kampala is an expression of our commitment to working in partnership with you.
In today's session, we want to recognize The Hunger Project's commitment to the sustainable end of chronic persistent hunger, and learn about the 3 major strategic interventions on the African continent. Then, we will look by and large at the AIDS crisis in Africa. We acknowledge that at times we will speak of HIV/AIDS in general terms for the African continent, but we recognize that there are great differences in the HIV rates. We also recognize that the participants from each country are the experts who know the extent of the problem in their countries, and the strategies that are needed to cope with the issue.
Next, we will look at the importance of Gender Equality in the AIDS epidemic. We will also acknowledge that, today, to be a leader in Africa, and to be an authentic partner with Africa is to be committed to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Then, we will look at the strategic actions that The Hunger Project has taken to date regarding stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. And finally we will end the first day by going through the "AIDS and Gender Inequality" workshop step by step.
And tomorrow, we will have two separate sessions - one for women and one for men, in which we will look at the importance of gender inequality as it fuels the spread of AIDS, and the importance of gender for the future of African society. The groups will also look at what their commitment is with respect to this strategy and the implementation of the workshop on the ground upon their return home. In the afternoon session, we will again meet in the plenary, and Fitigu will lead the session on the Program of Action. We will then have the opportunity to complete the weekend with a concluding summary. Hopefully, the Vice President will be with us at that time.
The Hunger Project's Initiatives in AfricaThe Hunger Project is a global, strategic organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. In Africa, South Asia and Latin America, we have pioneered strategies that empower local people to achieve lasting progress in health, education, nutrition and family income. I want to tell you a little bit about our programs in Africa, as it is in this framework that we will make our contribution towards the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
In Africa, our strategic programs have 3 major initiatives.
First, The Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger. The Africa Prize is the world's only initiative designed to call forth leadership committed to a new future for Africa. Since 1987, The Hunger Project has focused international attention on the women and men who have demonstrated extraordinary courage and leadership for the wellbeing of Africa's people. To date, The Hunger Project has awarded the Africa Prize to 10 women and 16 men. The recipients have included presidents, grassroots leaders, environmentalists, scientists, and AIDS prevention activists.
And, in 1999, The Hunger Project honored the 100 million African Women Food Farmers, which resulted in the Africa Prize traveling to 8 African countries as part of the Torch Events. Ruth Namyalo, the representative of the women farmers from Uganda is here with us. Also here with us is Mrs. Barbra Mutaawa, the Chair of the National Women's Commission, and the National Coordinating Chairperson of the African Woman Food Farmer.
The second major initiative - the Epicenters Strategy. In 6 countries in Africa - Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal, and Uganda - The Hunger Project has mobilized grassroots people for self-reliant development based on our strategic planning-in-action methodology. This mobilization begins with the construction of an epicenter, with a health clinic, rural banking, education, food production and training in many fields such as income generating activities.
Most importantly, these epicenters and each of their facilities are managed by dedicated, trained committees of local villagers chosen by their peers. These epicenters beyond being centers of mobilization, are centers where the villagers get trained in Hunger Project methodology for creating vision, commitment and action for self-reliance to achieve the end of the persistence of hunger. Thousands of animators have been trained in the 6 countries to reach out to mobilize hundreds of villages, transferring technology and training to people to create their own self-reliant future. Local government officials and traditional leaders like the village Chiefs have been actively involved in this process at every step, thus providing local people with access to information, expertise and resources.
Our third major initiative is the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative. An Initiative that is designed to empower and support the women farmers of Africa who grow 80% of Africa's food. The purpose of this initiative is to create consciousness in Africa - of the central role the African woman food farmer plays in Africa. This initiative is designed to catalyze action for her economic empowerment, and transform policies and resource allocations consistent with her critical and central role for the future of Africa. One of the strategies of this initiative is to enable the poorest of the poor farmers to have access to credit by creating their own rural banks.
This initiative was launched in our 6 African countries and Mozambique through a campaign called the Torch Events, where thousands of people gathered to receive the Africa Prize statue, which in turn has become a major event honoring the woman food farmer in her country. This strategy has taken the African Woman Food Farmer from invisibility to prominence on the National Agenda. To date, almost one million US dollars have been given as loans through this program, and more than 28,000 women have gained access to the training and credit they need to increase their crop production, and generate their own assets and savings through income-generating activities.
AIDS Statistics
Clearly, one of the threats to having people achieve lasting progress in health, education, nutrition and family income - is the scourge of AIDS. As an expression of our reverence of the people who are living with this disease and those who have died from it, it is appropriate to share the shocking statistics:
We in The Hunger Project have been intensely studying the issue of AIDS for the last two years. We attended the UN Special Session on AIDS in June 2001, and we have focused most of our attention and learning on AIDS in Africa. We wanted to come to understand what has this epidemic be so devastating and so out of control in Africa. We became clear that poverty was obviously not the cause, though poverty certainly exarcerbates AIDS, and AIDS exarcerbates poverty.
As we in The Hunger Project began to study the issue of AIDS, we were sobered to discover that the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa is caused, in large measure by exactly the same issues that hold the persistence of hunger in place: a lack of committed political leadership, a lack of widely available information, education and primary health facilities, and - most of all - deeply entrenched social conditions of gender inequality.
Why We Must Focus on Gender When Addressing HIV/AIDS
With your permission, I would now like to share with you a couple of sections of the talk I gave at the Africa Prize award ceremony in New York, since it will make clear our understanding of AIDS and Gender Inequality.
As we all know, medically speaking, HIV is a virus and AIDS is the consequence of a viral infection. It is spread through unprotected sex with an infected partner, contaminated blood, and mother to child transmission. In Africa, HIV is predominantly transmitted by heterosexual activity. Africa is the only region in the world where more women than men are infected. In some countries, the average rate of infection of teenage girls is 5 times higher than of teenage boys.
As we know, women for biological reasons are more vulnerable than men to HIV. But the reason why women are at special risk -- is because they lack the power to determine how, when, where, and all too often with whom, sex takes place.
Gender inequality keeps women uninformed about prevention, powerless to protect themselves, last in line for care and life saving treatment, and imposes an overwhelming burden on them to care for the sick and dying. The bottom line is that there is a direct correlation between women's low status, the violation of their human rights, and HIV transmission.
It is now unequivocally clear that it is men's sexual behavior influenced by harmful cultural beliefs about masculinity that is causing the AIDS epidemic to be out of control in many African countries. These harmful cultural beliefs encourage men to have many sex partners and unprotected sex, while taboos about discussing sex openly, discourage education.
In epidemiological terms, this means that persuading 10 men with several partners to engage in safe sex has far greater impact than enabling one thousand women to protect themselves from their only partner. The 10 men are at the beginning of the chain of infection; the 1,000 women are its last link.
Therefore, it seems that to truly have effective prevention strategies, traditional gender roles that have gone unquestioned for generations must now be reexamined and transformed. What we must recognize is that men are as trapped in their traditional roles as women are. Men must have the courage to come together to examine and challenge old harmful concepts of masculinity, and create a new definition of what it means to be a man in this new millennium. Women need to become more assertive, empowered and economically autonomous. They need to continue to challenge the patriarchal system that denies them the opportunity to be independent, and to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.
Even though the examination and redefinition of the roles of men and women will be difficult - for Africa to successfully confront the AIDS crisis, the issue of gender inequality must be addressed and addressed successfully.
AIDS is not the only devastating symptom of gender inequality. Women farmers who produce 80% of Africa's food are marginalized and unsupported - which means that Africa is the only region in the world where the per capita food production has declined. And declined by 23 percent in the last 28 years. This issue is of critical importance because 39% of sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished, and 43% of Africans now have inadequate food security.
A recent analysis of development by the World Bank indicates that countries with smaller gaps between women and men in areas such as education, employment, and property rights not only have lower child malnutrition and mortality, they also have less corruption in governance and faster economic growth. Cross country studies report that if the Middle East, South Asia and Africa had been as successful as East Asia in narrowing the gender gap only in education, the Gross National Product (GNP) per capita in Africa and the other regions would have grown by an additional 16 to 30% from 1960 to 1990.
If the AIDS epidemic is to be stopped - if Africa is to end the persistence of hunger - if Africa is to achieve faster economic growth and less corruption in governance - Africa must increase opportunities for its women to have full equality and be fully participating citizens.
The Hunger Project's AIDS Initiatives in Africa
It became clear that, today, to be a leader in Africa is to include in your leadership stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Any other definition of leadership is insufficient. At the same time, to be an authentic partner with Africa, to stand in solidarity with Africa, to stand for the end of hunger in Africa, is to also stand for the stopping of the spread of HIV/AIDS.
We in The Hunger Project realize that to be effective in our commitment and our work for achieving the sustainable end of hunger - we must incorporate strategies to stop the spread of AIDS - specifically, strategies based on the recognition that gender inequality is a driving force in the AIDS epidemic on the African Continent.
Consistent with The Hunger Project's commitment, we have taken the following 4 strategic actions:
The first strategic action that The Hunger Project took was to dedicate last year's Africa Prize to those men and women who are playing a leadership role in stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS on the African Continent. We awarded the prize to 4 distinguished individuals:
Obviously, had President Museveni not already received the Prize in 1998 for his work in ensuring peace and stability, adequate social services, support for farmers and diversification of the economy of Uganda - we would have awarded him the Prize in 2001 for his effective work for stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
The second strategic action was the creation of an 8-point strategic framework, which I know you all have read, and we emphasized that this strategy needs to be built on the recognition that it is gender inequality between men and women that is driving the spread of this epidemic.
The third strategic action was that The Hunger Project included HIV/AIDS education in our health programs in our 7 countries. Since we awarded the Africa Prize for Leadership on October 13th 2001, we also committed ourselves to a campaign to resource, refocus and expand these awareness programs to reach far more people far more effectively.
The fourth strategic action is the reason we are here this weekend - which is the creation of an AIDS and Gender Inequality workshop which will empower both women and men to examine and transform gender roles that lead to the spread of AIDS.
Internationally, there is a growing recognition that gender inequality is fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS, but you don't hear about strategies to cope with it. The international community is just beginning to speak about how power imbalances between men and women are a primary factor contributing to the spread of the disease, but again you don't hear of actions to address the imbalance.
When gender is discussed, it sometimes camouflages the issue. At the UN Special Session on AIDS in June of 2001, there was no or very little mention that male sexuality drives this epidemic. Until we involve men in addressing their attitudes and behaviors that lead to risky sexual behavior, our efforts will fail. Bottom line, we have not found very many organizations and strategies addressing men's and women's roles in fueling the AIDS epidemic.
The work we will engage in this afternoon is really pioneering and in some cases, really courageous. It seems vital that this issue be addressed, and yet it is not an easy issue to address.
The "AIDS and Gender Inequality: Action at the Grassroots" Workshop
There are four sections to the workshop
In this first section, we want to empower people to know the facts about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. We have limited this section to the 10 facts that we think people absolutely must know. And, we call out particularly dangerous myths, and make clear that they have no validity.
In the second section, we want to come to grips with the fact that gender inequality is literally responsible for the spread of the epidemic - and is exacting a terrible cost on our society.
We intend for people to discover that we do not need to confine ourselves to traditional gender roles that trap us - we can literally redefine what it means to be a man - and what it means to be a woman - such that we can stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. We intend that every man and woman in the workshop comes to recognize themselves as a individual with human rights. We intend that every person assembled in this workshop discovers that every positive aspect of life - health, education, information, dignity, safety - are the birthright of every one of us - male and female alike.
Once people have this breakthrough - we want to translate that recognition into commitment and action. We want everyone in the workshop to commit themselves to standing for their own human rights, and for respecting and protecting the rights of others. We want everyone in the workshop to commit themselves to not permit the spread of HIV/AIDS. From this commitment, we will foster a brainstorming process of identifying actions people will take in the next 3 months to protect their rights and their health - whether that is forming support groups, or bringing this issue into their existing loan circles.
We want to hear from women how they will ensure that other women are protected against violence and rejection. We want to hear from men that they will respect the right of women to have safe sex in all situations - and will take all necessary measures to prevent other men from mistreating women or promoting misinformation. We further want people to think together - men and women - on how to protect others - and on how to educate their children and others not in the workshop. Finally, we want to mobilize people in support of spreading the word to surrounding villages.