August 18, 2002
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Botswana, which has the world's highest HIV rate, said Sunday that the upcoming UN Earth summit in Johannesburg must link the issues of poverty and AIDS.
In a report made available to AFP and which is to be presented to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, meeting from August 26 to September 4, the NGO's wrote that poverty and HIV/AIDS were "serious, critical and regional issues" which needed to be tackled head on. "There is a general consensus within civil society that poverty and HIV/AIDS are currently Botswana's most critical issues," the report says.
According to the UN agency, UNAIDS, almost 40 percent of adults in Botswana are HIV-positive or have full-blown AIDS.
The NGO's said poverty in the country with a population of 1.6 million was alarming with one in two people living below the poverty level. "This is despite the country's image as a model developing country in the middle-income category," the report added.
Botswana is a diamond-rich nation which has amassed foreign reserves to the tune of six billion dollars (euros) and a gross domestic product calculated in 2000 as 6,600 dollars per capita, a huge sum by African standards. However, it is estimated to have 330,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS and 65,000 orphans.
"Poverty and HIV infection are closely related, and both most severely affect disadvantaged groups such as women and minority groups. Lack of access to resources such as land, and collective denial and stigmatisation are among the components hampering successful tackling of these issues," the report said.
Other regional issues of concern included shared natural resources such as water as well as worries over genetically modified food, it concluded.
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