Editorial: Musings on Developments on AIDS and Alternative Energy

In the first of my editorials, I would like to address the issues of AIDS and Alternative Energy, especially their relevance to African nations. World opinions and attitudes towards these are integral to whether our neighbors south of our continent continue to develop, and their development (or lack of it) will affect how the world interacts 50 years down the road (provided we don't mutually annihilate ourselves or heat the world to the extent that we burn up and die).
AIDS
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of HIV transmission in the world, with the bulk of transmissions due to shared intravenous needles and sexually active individuals. Throughout my interviews with delegates from different countries, there is a consensus reached that AIDS is a problem and that it must be tackled with before it becomes worse than it is now.

Two major threads of thought run throughout the delegations. Namely, they are education and R&D.

(a) Education
For education, while most countries are in favor of education, though many do not make a distinction between which types of education they are in favor of – sex education or general literacy education. For the most part delegates did not make the distinction, though when further pressed, most said literacy education, which is in line with Norway’s stance in promoting literacy education to poorer nations. Norway’s representative in the WHO Ms. Cindy Yang, says that the AIDS endemic is closely related to the gender inequalities present in society as well as a country’s economic standing. By bringing up the literacy level in poorer countries, we will be able to empower women and children to make conscious decisions about their lives, in particular their sex lives as well, and with economic leverage, women can cease to be the abused gender in traditionally patriarchal societies.

It is important to note that general literacy education is not mutually exclusive with sex education; in fact, general literacy is a prerequisite to sex education. Without general literacy, ideas about sex and its relevance to the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) cannot be disseminated to the general public easily. In fact, Norway proposes action on both fronts. Within the WHO, Ms. Yang has suggested the use of general literacy education, while in the UNDP, our representative Ms. Tania Harsono has proposed a six-point proposal (listed in Major Update 1) involving sex education and expansion of funding specifically. Holistically, Norway has provided a total solution that seems feasible in taking a major step towards eliminating AIDS.

However, this total solution cannot come without major funding from donor countries, and the United States has expressed their desire for an “abstinence” clause to be inserted into the final resolution before they provide funding. This “abstinence” clause seeks to heavily promote abstinence as a part of the sex education provided to the poorer nations. Rather than help anything, however, I believe that the abstinence clause simply reflects a duality in the United States’ actions, which must be confronted by the other nations. It also runs contrary to Norway’s ideals and goals proposed by our delegation.

One must ask: What makes the African nations just as receptive to abstinence education as the American people? Are the Americans being culturally sensitive in their solution to the problem? And when AIDS afflicts 1.0 to 1.2 million Americans right now, what makes them so sure that abstinence is the way to go when it hasn’t solve any problems domestically yet? Additionally, will abstinence solve the problem of AIDS being transmitted through shared needles, which constitutes at least 70% of new HIV+ cases? The big question is: are we willing to spend money on a program that will not have a major effect on the development of AIDS? At the very best, the US’s solution does not provide any better alternative to that of Norway’s; at worst, it will stall the development of a resolution, and will provide extra monetary burden to the UN.

(2) RnD
Funding must be channeled through to the appropriate means, and one of them will be research and development. MSF and the UK agree for the need for cheaper drugs, and that would mean pressuring major pharmaceutical companies (mostly with major interests in the United States) to permit the development of generic anti-retroviral drug treatments to allow greater accessibility by NGOs and poorer African nations to these drug treatments.

More funding is required, and Norway and a whole host of rich nations have contributed at around 0.7% of their GNP to the UN budget. The United States, however, only contributes 0.22% of its GNP. Evidently, the USA has a long way to go in terms of matching its full potential for contributions. Norway contributes, on average, about 0.9% of its GNP to the UN budget for aid, one of five nations that actually exceed the 0.7% mark, and I believe that this provides us with a strong grounding to take charge of the proposal for expansion of funding. (The other four are Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Sweden.)

Here, the big question is: will the United States yield to their powerful pharmaceutical lobby, or will President Bush provide the leverage required to help reduce cost of drugs and provide public funding for AIDS research? Additionally, will the United States provide additional funding for such a program?

Finally, one may have noted how the focus is generally placed on Africa, with the rest of the world generally ignored. True enough, though sub-Saharan Africa has the highest HIV transmission rate, China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America are all experiencing rising numbers of HIV cases. In particular, Haiti has one of the fastest rates of HIV transmission outside of sub-Saharan Africa, and this is closely related to their internal violence. Norway’s UNDP proposal to expand the funding available to HIV/AIDS programs is in line with these countries’ desires to give more attention to their regions as well, and I believe that this would be a good thing, for expansion of the programs globally would ensure that the epidemic does not reach unmanageable proportions before we cure Africa of AIDS.
Alternative Energy
In terms of alternative energy for Africa, it seems that most countries agree on the need for Africa to develop alternative energy, with some notable exceptions as noticed by Norway’s representative to the World Bank, Mr. Charles Zhu.

Africa definitely has a pressing need for alternative energy. Considering the rising costs of oil, if Africa were to develop an oil-based economy, then they would have to compete with industrialized nations for oil barrels, in which case they wouldn’t have the economic leverage to do so. Additionally, an economy that starts on fossil fuels and develops the technology for it typically gets addicted to it; a quick glance at most of the Western world shows this. Rather than empower Africa in the long-term, any proposal to bring oil into Africa (or at least oppose alternative energy in Africa) has the potential to permanently cripple the African economy. If we assume that all nations agree that Africa needs to develop, and that development requires energy, then an oil-guzzling economy would certainly irreparably damage Africa’s economy in the short run, severely hindering its capability to develop further.

Additionally, with the environment and climate change a major world issue, it is to the world’s advantage to ensure that Africa develops cleanly and skips past ‘dirty energy’. Historically, we know that coal and oil cause health problems and climate changes in the locales where they are used, and that these are undesirable side effects. If China and India are of any indication, them being rapidly industrializing nations with huge populations consuming loads of energy has led scientists to earmark them both as the next biggest greenhouse gas emitters. This will certainly shift a balance in the climate. In order to protect the environment of the world, Africa needs to skip past this ‘dirty energy’ stage, and only with the West’s help can this happen.

Considering also that we may have well reached peak production of oil, it would be foolish for any nation to think that we can still expand the production of oil as an energy source for the future of Africa. Saudi Arabia and China have opposed the use of alternative energies, and while their intents have not been made explicitly known, they certainly seem to have interests in the use of fossil-fuel energy in Africa. The United States, surprisingly, has remained mum on the issue of energy sources, considering how President Bush promoted some (half-hearted) initiatives to develop clean energy and fuel-efficient vehicles.

Additionally, with Russia discontinuing their supply of oil to Western Europe, nations like ourselves and Saudi Arabia will have willing buyers for oil, which, with higher price offers and greater economic muscle on Europe’s side, will leave Africa out in the cold. A lack of energy directly translates to poorer economies, which may exacerbate poverty-related problems in Africa.

Norway recognizes all three of these points, and so, contrary to our perceived opposition to clean energy, we are ready to lend our expertise in developing hydroelectric power in southeastern Africa, which is feasible considering the fact that numerous rivers run through Africa. It would work well to encourage our Dutch counterparts to send in their experts on solar and wind energy, as well as other nations to participate in this project with us, for we all have an impetus – our climate – to help them with this.
Projections and Insights on Political Proceedings in MUN
Some of these predictions are unrelated to the editorial, and reflect my interviews with delegates during their free times.

I predict that the United States will start to feel pressure on its abstinence policy, and that the corps will start to exert its collective weight on the United States to produce a stand on its foreign energy policy.

Haiti is a nation that has problems with both AIDS and disarmament of its country. If it is recognized as a potential starting point for solving violence-related problems, it can benefit from donor aid to help solve its AIDS problems too. Haiti would then be instrumental in helping the world find effective solutions to both problems of disarmament and AIDS.

Given that the United Kingdom has its water supplies privatized, it may encounter opposition from countries that believe in the freedom to have water amenities available through public services. If it is willing to strike deals with those countries, it could possibly garner support for its missions in Afghanistan and Darfur.

Ukraine will need to gather support from countries that do not believe that those having stockpiles be allowed to keep them secret, or that do not believe that countries that already have biological weapons can still be allowed to keep them. Both of these clauses are a thorn to progress on biological weapons, and either one must be removed.

Algeria, Canada and Norway can cooperate very closely on the issue of immigration-related HIV transmission. If MSF and the five European top-donor nations negotiate with other rich nations properly, more funds can be made available for the stopping of the spread of AIDS.