Durban Declaration:

Preventing and Coping with HIV/AIDS in Post Conflict Societies: Gender-Based Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa

WHEREAS Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 630 million people of diverse racial and ethnic groups with a long and proud history and culture and has one of the richest natural resource bases in the world, with potential to be one of the most prosperous regions, nevertheless: 

1.      The twin scourges of violent conflict and HIV/AIDS have mutually reinforced each other though a multiplicity of mechanisms including large-scale population dislocation, the destruction of the public health infrastructure and the weakening of governance and economy. These twin scourges are destroying families, communities, nations and the African continent as a whole.

2.      More than 50% of the world’s active violent internal and regional conflicts are in Africa.  These conflicts have directly or indirectly affected over 75% percent of the region’s countries and populations, conscripted over 300,000 child soldiers, displaced over 30 million people from their homes, caused the deaths of over one million people, destroyed social and economic infrastructure, damaged the environment, weakened institutions of governance and generally retarded equitable, sustained and sustainable development.

3.      More than 75% of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases are found in Africa. More than 11 million Africans have succumbed to AIDS over the past decade and the social and economic consequences are profound.

4.      Gender roles play a crucial role in both the evolution of the problem and in the way forward to solutions. Women are disproportionately affected by the physical and psychological consequences of conflict and HIV.

5.      Poverty is a key contributing factor to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

6.      While there is recognition of these problems, and resources have been devoted to their solutions, current approaches are inadequate in both magnitude and scope. HIV, conflict and gender roles crosscut all development concerns and should be mainstreamed into all sectors.

7.      Current financial resources are also inadequate to address the scope and magnitude of these complex social problems.  

Noting that throughout the continent, every single day, women and men are actively preventing and coping with HIV/AIDS, conflict, and gender-based violence and that there are particularly remarkable lessons to be learned from African women who through a series of grass-roots efforts have evolved unique approaches towards these challenges;

Further noting that, there are growing networks, initiatives, and partnerships to address these intertwined challenges in Africa and that these efforts, already generating momentum towards creative solutions, need to be recognized and supported;

Now therefore, we the undersigned African members of the international development and health community who assembled in Durban South Africa and deliberated for three full days, at the invitation of  the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the Tulane University Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in association with the Linking Complex Emergency Response and Transition Initiative (CERTI), the International Centre for Migration and Health (ICMH-Geneva) and the World Bank (Pretoria),

Taking special account of the community, national and regional experience and lessons learned of African strategists and implementers of programs and projects, especially at the sub-national and community level, to cope with and combat HIV/AIDS in conflict affected countries;

Acknowledging that conflict, HIV/AIDS and gender inequalities are inextricably related and therefore solutions to these problems must take in to account this complex interrelationship which requires interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches. 

Request that national governments, national NGOs, and the international community, including all bilateral and multilateral donors and international NGOs, must revisit their policies, strategies and programs to fight the twin scourges of violent conflict and HIV-AIDS and achieve sustainable peace based on:

1.      Mainstreaming interventions to address HIV/AIDS, conflict prevention, mitigation and resolution/reconciliation and women’s empowerment into all sectoral programs;

2.      Empowering women as key actors and community mobilizers to both address both HIV/AIDS and conflict resolution/peace building. Empowerment requires action at the policy (including legal framework), strategy and program levels at local, subnational, national and international legal levels;

3.      Devising a conceptual framework that:

4.      Recognizing that conflict and HIV/AIDS will require behavioural change at the individual, institutional, community, national and international levels;

5.      Necessitating that approaches must address the problems of stigma and shame, which are underlined by fear on the parts of both, infected and affected.  There is also a need to promote self-esteem and healthy relationships and hope, including hope for a cure; 

6.      Including as a priority psychosocial care for those affected by conflict and HIV/AIDS, with special attention given to trauma management and reintegration into communities for ex-combatants, especially former child soldiers;

7.      Giving special consideration to vulnerable groups such as women, children, young adults, people with disabilities, orphans, refugees and internally displaced persons, child soldiers and ex-combatants; 

8.      Requiring broad and strategic partnerships, including the military sector, women’s groups, civil society groups, spiritual institutions and the private sector;

9.      Embracing the importance of regional and locally-tailored solutions that are based on the common principals of women’s empowerment, intersectoral approaches, analysis of the needs of vulnerable groups, gender analysis, and peace;

10.  Promoting national, regional, and international networking, dialogue and cooperation; 

11.  Mainstreaming conflict, gender and HIV/AIDS strategies and programs in the broader post-conflict development and democracy and governance framework;

12.  Enhancing present programmes in areas of care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS, particularly in making medical treatment affordable and accessible and providing services that alleviate their suffering and protect their human rights.

We therefore recommend that:

1.      As conflict, HIV/AIDS and gender are now inextricably linked in Sub-Saharan Africa; all conflict programs must adequately address the issues of HIV/AIDS, poverty and gender.

2.      The proceedings of this forum be widely disseminated to the practitioners and policy community, including donors, international organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including religious organizations, and governmental sectors, including the military;

3.      Practical tools be developed to support the programming approaches articulated above for addressing the problems of HIV/AIDS and conflict/crisis through gender-based strategies;

4.      Donors increase resource levels in support of programs to address these critical problems through a process of regular consultation that facilitates strategic partnerships, community ownership and mutual accountability;

5.      There be increased donor coordination and programming and streamlined requirements;

6.      All of the actors involved in addressing these problems utilize intersectoral approaches that address the complex inter-relationship between conflict, HIV/AIDS, poverty and gender roles;

7.      Mechanisms be put in place to build a learning network of professionals and workers in order to improve the quality and efficacy of programs as well as to increase advocacy for these issues;

8.      Empowering women and addressing the root causes of their vulnerability is key to preventing and coping with HIV/AIDS.

In witness, whereof, we the undersigned, being duly representative of African members of the international development and health community have assented to the declaration here in, concluded in Durban, Republic of South Africa on the 28^th day of March 2001.