WRITTEN QUESTION E-1092/00

by Mary Banotti (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(7 April 2000)

Subject: Aids in Africa

Aids is killing between 30 % and 50 % of Africa's teachers and the whole education system throughout Africa is in danger of collapse, thus endangering the future prosperity of the continent. Children in Africa are not receiving as much basic education as they did twenty years ago. In view of this calamitous situation, what funding is being made available by the Commission for education in general and for teacher-training in particular in Africa in order to try and compensate for the loss of so many teachers due to the Aids epidemic?

Answer given by Mr Nielson on behalf of the Commission

(11 May 2000)

The Commission is very concerned about the crisis caused by the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) epidemic and is particularly aware of the fact that HIV/AIDS affects people, households, communities and countries in a devastating manner. Teachers are becoming scarcer, and children are taken out of school to care for themselves or their families.

The education system is also affected in several ways. Firstly, HIV/AIDS has an impact on education as a system, and secondly, training, teaching, syllabuses and curricula need to be adapted to provide information and education on life skills, risks and protection related to sexual behaviour and vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.

There is consequently a need for the donor community and the Community to help create a better environment for tackling support for HIV/AIDS training and education. The Community has already supported several life skill education programmes in relationship with HIV/AIDS for the young. It recognises that more needs to be done in this specific field.

In the field of education, there has been a radical shift between Lomé III and revised Lomé IV (1995-2000). Whereas, under Lomé III and IV, such investment was financially limited, dispersed and not targeted at basic education, the implementation of the revised Lomé IV signalled a radical change. There was a considerable increase in financial resources (15 % of the total), priority being for primary education (80 % of the total amount for education) and in every programme there is a significant component devoted to teacher training.

A document showing the 8th European development fund (EDF) commitments (plus South Africa) and sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament's Secretariat, affords only a partial picture of investment as a number of large national programmes (e.g. Nigeria) and regional programmes have not yet been committed.

AIDS programmes are funded from a variety of instruments, such as national indicative programmes, regional intra-African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) funds (for an amount of 20 million) and a specific budget line for AIDS and population (+/- 20 million in the year 2000).

An overall evaluation of education, training and health activities under the 7th and 8th EDF is currently in progress. It will give specific information about HIV/AIDS related training.

Besides funding programmes in the field, the Commission is actively participating in all the international fora where this crucial question is being debated with the donor community and the counterparts. The Commission attended the coming world education forum at Dakar 26th-28th April 2000, where a sub-plenary session on 27th April 2000 discussed the issue under the title Overcoming the effects of HIV/AIDS on basic education.