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Activists demand action on G8 AIDS pledge

    JOHANNESBURG

    Promises by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations to assist in providing universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment will be broken unless firm commitments are made at this week's UN High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS, activists announced on Wednesday.

    At the end of their annual meeting in July last year, G8 leaders agreed to an immediate doubling of aid to Africa - to the tune of US$25 million - to allow the continent to tackle poverty and disease by 2010.

    However, the international development agency, ActionAid, charged that many of those promises seemed to have become meaningless gestures.

    "The world's most powerful leaders made a big deal about fighting HIV/AIDS but the political will has evaporated. It's time for the talking to end - we need money on the table now," Leonard Okello, head of ActionAid's International HIV/AIDS programme, said in a statement.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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