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The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Winnie Byanyima, has called for reform of the international financial system to enable African countries to borrow on fair terms and get their debt restructured. 

“The international financial system is rigged against our continent and it should be reformed. Our countries are highly indebted today, paying more to service the debt than to the health systems that shoulder the HIV response. All because these debts were acquired at very high interest, higher than rich countries borrow on the market,” she told New Vision on Saturday, December 9. 

Byanyima, a former executive director of Oxfam International and Mbarara Municipality MP in western Uganda, said African debts doubled and tripled when the Ukraine war broke out in early 2022. 

“A war we had nothing to do with, but a war that resulted in a higher interest cost and low investments in our health and no relief. Not enough relief for all those external reasons that have put us in this kind of indebtedness,” she said. 

In Uganda, the public debt stood at sh88.80 trillion as of the end of August 2023, and sh17 trillion of the sh52 trillion budget for this 2023/2024 financial year was to pay debts. 

The UNAIDS boss also said another rigged system is that of global corporate taxation where African countries don’t collect enough revenues because companies can hide their profits and put their money in tax havens. 

“We lose billions on this continent through tax dodging. This must be reformed. African countries went to the UN two weeks ago, they pushed a motion that was passed by the majority of countries calling for a conference to discuss corporate tax reform so that we can start to get the revenues due to our people. This motion was supported by most countries of the world,” she said. 

She noted that only 44 rich countries, which are benefitting from the setup, opposed the motion, but it passed. “We cannot end AIDS unless we can get the taxes that are due to us and pay for our response. We cannot end AIDS unless we can also borrow on fair terms and get our debt restructured,” she said. 

The global financial system is a broader regional system that encompasses all financial institutions, borrowers, and lenders within the global economy. These financial institutions include the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

Free girl education 

Byanyima also urged African countries to roll out free universal secondary education for the protection of girls against HIV. 

“Every time a woman dies in childbirth, every time a girl dies in childbirth or following an unsafe abortion, this is a failure of public policy, because if public policy puts a priority on women’s lives, we shouldn’t have a woman die in childbirth. She should be taken care of from the time she conceives to the time she delivers her baby,” she said. 

She also stated that when they don’t prioritise the lives of women and girls, infections amongst girls and young women rise. 

“Take sexual and gender-based violence—we have laws against them. But our institutions that should prevent and should address it when it happens, the judiciary, are often not equipped with enough resources or capacity to tackle this challenge of sexual and gender-based violence.

So, it goes unpunished. Impunity leads to more and more lack of safety for girls and young women. So, we have to work on the public policies to equalise for girls and women in the society,” she said.