| | The spectre of AIDS is haunting Africa. If present trends continue, its impact on development and society will be devastating. This issue of ROAPE looks at some of the graphic realities of the situation as faced by those who must cope. It also explores the struggles and the debates around who might take responsibility - for delivering programmes of prevention and care, for making affordable drugs available to those in need and for dealing with the consequences of loss wreaked by the epidemic. If families bear the heaviest burden, what role do states, NGOs and international agencies have in managing the crisis and in averting the worst scenarios? These questions have to be considered in context. The epidemic comes at the worst possible time for Africa, already facing economic crisis and indebtedness, the deliberate down- sizing of national governments through externally-imposed neo-liberal policies, as well as riven by more armed conflicts than any other region of the world. |
