UNAids executive director Michel Sidibe addresses National Assembly in special sitting |30 September 2017
Places emphasis in youth health, education, social programmes
Mr Sidibe interacting informally with the Assembly leaders after his presentation
It is important to invest in education, health and social development programmes for young people in order to curb HIV and Aids and Seychelles with a population of 90,000 should not have the highest number of young people injecting drug because it could completely destroy our prospect of building a healthy nation, the executive director of UNAids Michel Sidibe has said.
Mr Sidibe is in Seychelles to attend the sixth meeting of African Ministers of Health of Small Islands Developing States (Sids) and yesterday morning he addressed members of the National Assembly in a special sitting.
He has called on the National Assembly to maximise its role to position health as a driver of social development of our nation by;
- using its ability to enact legislation to the maximum;
- working to reform punitive laws and
- re-writing norms that impede the agenda.
Mr Sidibe applauded Seychelles for repealing homophobic laws noting that it is among very few countries which have made the move and has encouraged it to continue to address laws, policies and social practices that hinder access to sexual and reproductive health services for young people.
He called on the government to use its financial authority to adopt budgets that drive investments in adolescents/young people and key populations.
Mr Sidibe remarked that in many countries health is considered a cost and not an investment but stressed that this needs to change.
“It is important to invest in health, education, social sector making it key in budget deliberations. Focusing on young people and adolescent is critical,” he added.
The major challenge we are facing today is the lack of a government system which could allow us to redistribute, to make sure we have a true social justice and greater access to people who are left behind,” Mr Sidibe said.
He went on to emphasise the issue of young people noting that “from Mali to Victoria in Seychelles, our societies are faced with challenges of integration of the young people where 60% of them are less than 25 years old without jobs and hope and the risk to lose all the social capital around them is very high making them vulnerable to HIV infections and Aids”.
Mr Sidibe went on to highlight the different social issues young people from societies of our region are facing.
“It is important for you to reflect on these issues and to use your critical leadership and the vision you have set for your country to bring proper laws, reforms which would help us to address these issues,” Mr Sidibe pointed out.
Talking about UNAids work in many countries which has helped transformed the face of the epidemic globably, Mr Sidibe said there has been transformation from despair to hope throughout the African continent.
He noted that in South Africa for instance, a few years back there used to have only 90 people on treatment but today there are around 4 million people on treatment.
“For the first time in the history of the epidemic we have more people on treatment than people waiting for treatment,” Mr Sidibe affirmed.
He said Seychelles has been able to demonstrate that leadership matter, that right policies are key, that decisions taken by parliament to access resources can make a difference.
“You have been able to achieve 100% of coverage for pregnant women who are HIV positive,” he said, noting that very few cases of babies born with HIV during the past three years were recorded.
“This is a success story which demonstrates that when we are talking to each other, when we are putting the right strategy, policies and laws in the right direction for the poorest segment of our society, we can have a new generation born without HIV and these success stories are important to be shared,” he pointed out.
Mr Sidibe went on to note that at the same time it is important to recognise that globally we have a major problem with inclusiveness of groups of people who inject drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men… as they don’t have access to treatment, harm reduction programmes and they continue to infect their partners and spread the epidemic.
“We want to avoid that here because in a small population of 90,000 we will not have the highest number of young people injecting drug because it could completely destroy your prospect of building a healthy nation. That will happen only if you use evidence based approach, people centred approach, and making sure we transform our programmes, making sure there are enough resources to deliver on this critical programme for the nation.
The Speaker of the National Assembly Patrick Pillay had previously described Mr Michel Sidibe as “a very distinguished son of Africa” when he welcomed him into the Assembly for a special sitting during which he addressed the House yesterday morning.
“We are privileged to have a distinguished son of our continent addressing us today,” Speaker Pillay said.
Speaker Pillay continued by saying that Mr Sidibe, a Malian born of a French mother and Malian father, is a long standing champion of a people centred approach to health and development and a strong advocate of social justice. He became the 2nd executive director of UNAids on January 1, 2009. His vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids-related death has helped drive recent progress in the Aids response. The goal of having 15 million people living with HIV on anti-retroviral therapy by the end of 2015 was achieved nine months ahead of schedule. These life-saving medicines have continued to expand with 18.2 million people on treatment by mid-2016.
“Under his leadership at UNAids more and more countries have adopted the fast-track approach through which the achievement of a measurable target by 2020 will set the world on course to end the Aids epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 within the framework of the sustainable development goals,” Speaker Pillay said.
He added that his leadership in calling for the elimination of new HIV infections among children has contributed to a 60% reduction since 2009 in new paediatric HIV infections in the 21 priority countries of the global plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive. His idea of shared responsibility and global solidarity has been embraced by the international community. This has encouraged an increased ownership of the epidemic by the countries most affected,” Speaker Pillay pointed out.
The leader of the opposition Wavel Ramkalwan said we are encouraged by the work UNAids is doing to tackle, reduce the occurrence and how to get more people on treatment and the results he said speak for themselves.
He also stressed that emphasis on caring for the youth is indeed most important noting that Seychelles where the youth population forms the majority is one area where the whole programme is focused.
But he admitted that the drug abuse scourge might derail us in the fight against HIV especially among our young people.
He talked about the amount of money the government is injecting in the methadone treatment programme, the number of Hepatitis C cases are all having a big impact on our budget money which could have been invested in health programmes… which as leaders we are called upon to play our role in eliminating these challenges.
The leader of government business Charles Decommarmond for his part said the presence of Mr Sidibe marks another historic chapter in the life of our legislation after the House was privileged to be addressed in May last year by the UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon.
“The presence of Mr Sidibe in our august House reaffirms the strong importance the UN attaches in valuing every nation no matter how small,” Mr Decommarmond said.
Other members of the Assembly were also able to question Mr Sidibe on different issues related to his work at the UNAids.