In reading the Secretary-General's reports and other relevant UN documents reflecting the items debated today, we believe that a lot has been accomplished since the Declaration of Commitment was adopted and the Special Session on Children convened.
Both affected countries and donors, supported by the UN and other organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have invested billions of dollars and hours of work saving and improving thousands of human lives, and especially children's lives.
Mr. President, Let me start with one of our major challenges - HIV/AIDS and children. At the 6th Pan-African Conference held in Algiers in September 2004, Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from Africa adopted a Plan of Action containing several objectives including the need for serious commitment to
i) fight stigma and discrimination faced by people living with HIV/AIDS and children orphaned by HIV/AIDS; ii) fight the pandemic through education; and
iii) provide psychological support for affected children, families and communities.
These three objectives reflect to a great deal what we are discussing today.
In Southern Africa alone, Red Cross Societies, through their networks of volunteers, are currently reaching 50,000 home care based people in need many of them children. They aim to triple this figure by the year 2010. Their activities include strengthening the capacity of community and family caregivers' ability to provide home care, referrals, psychological support and help in creating self-help projects and food-gardens.
Last year alone, in the same region, Red Cross staff and volunteers reached 1.4 million people with messages of HIV/AIDS prevention. A few weeks ago we launched an emergency appeal, requesting $30 million to assist 1.5 million people facing grave food insecurity in seven countries in southern Africa, namely; Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The aim is to provide food, agricultural support and safe drinking water to the vulnerable people in these countries where millions of children and young people are paying a high price, very often with their lives.
Also in Africa, Red Cross Societies, with support from the IFRC, are piloting a service delivery model on access to care and anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV/AIDS. The pilot is being carried out in six countries - Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Access to ART is considered a priority for our members in Africa.
The greatest service we can provide to any child is to keep his or her parents alive - and vice-versa. Is there anything more important for a parent than to keep his or her child alive? That is what we are trying to do.
Furthermore, Mr. President, the support for orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS (OVC) is another one of our main priorities in Africa.
Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and our own internal policies, we have developed a regional Red Cross OVC strategy in southern Africa. It advocates a holistic support to ensure that all needs of OVC are met, and that their rights are upheld. Holistic support, in the way we understand it, includes food and shelter, plus psychological, social and educational backing.
With this in mind our volunteers work with entire families and build strong relationships with the children who come to rely on them after their parents have passed away. Currently Red Cross volunteers are supporting 90,000 orphaned children in southern Africa - though our aim is to reach a much larger number by 2010.
While the African continent is particularly affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the IFRC is also working on HIV/AIDS response and prevention globally.
Over the last year, for example, the IFRC stepped up its peer education programs which have proven successful in schools, prisons, youth clubs, and among high-risk populations such as truck drivers and commercial sex workers. Community awareness campaigns, the promotion of condom use and the distribution of educational materials were also expanded.
One month from now, on December 1, the media-friendly anti-stigma event "Come closer…" will be launched worldwide, aiming at millions of youth and involving people living with HIV/AIDS. This is only one tool of our broad advocacy plan.
Mr. President, We are aware that this monumental task requires monumental efforts and broad partnerships. We work closely with the whole UN family, especially UNICEF whose campaign launched today. We strongly support WHO, UNAIDS, WFP, Governments and agencies such as DFID, with the World Bank, the OPEC Fund, and many private corporations.
This is crucial for facilitating children's access to antiretroviral therapy and treatment of opportunistic infections.
We also believe that partnerships with PLWHA and their organizations are a priority.
We are operationalising the agreement with Global Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (GNP+) at a national level.
Our member Red Cross Societies in Southern Africa are also increasing their support to carers - including the grandparents and guardians of orphaned children, the children who are caring for their sick parents, and - inevitably - the Red Cross volunteers who work tirelessly with PLWHA and their families and which, sadly, are also living with HIV and AIDS.
The IFRC is seeking ways to ensure that they have access to health care and psychological support.
There is another important reason why we see partnerships as so vital: the caregiver-patient ratio continues to rise. Because of it, National Societies need to recruit and train more volunteers in order to reduce the ratio to acceptable levels of one caregiver to 10 patients.
Volunteers work for free, but their training and motivation cost money and need continuous support.
We urge all stakeholders to invest more in human resource development - volunteers should not be taken for granted, as free humanitarian power which does not need investing in.
Our member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which under domestic and international law are auxiliaries to the public authorities, stand ready to work with your governments to bring action forward on this vital issue.
Mr. President, When tsunamis, hurricanes or earthquakes hit and destroy, we act swiftly, at least in most cases. We save children and parents alike. Sometimes one gets the feeling that sudden natural disasters push us to act in minutes and hours while with long lasting, even predictable disasters such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we are not fast and generous enough.
HIV/AIDS kills and affects more people annually than earthquakes and hurricanes combined.
We have to look for new ways to raise this consciousness. One thought might be that to strengthen our global and coordinated actions to combat HIV/AIDS and to secure better futures for our children, maybe the time has come to individually and specifically adopt villages. In Africa - and elsewhere - so that some day, we may say that child by child, village by village, country by country, a generation was saved.
I don't want to take anything away from the laudable adoption programs which seek to save other forms of life, but children must be our first and last priority.