Dispatches 17 US-SA partnership sets sights on an Aids-free future for young women AARON MOTSOALEDI AND – the largest treatment programme highly effective partnership with ■ Decreasing teenage PATRICK GASPARD in the world. the US, Pepfar committed funding pregnancy. We have achieved tremendous of $467m over the next year, ■ Decreasing sexual and gender- HEN the International success in reducing mother-to-child exceeding the amounts projected based violence. Aids Conference transmission of HIV, increasing in the 2012 Partnership Framework ■ Keeping girls in school. opened in Durban 16 HIV testing, and the voluntary male Implementation Plan. ■ Increasing economic Wyears ago, the chal- medical circumcision programme The objective of achieving an opportunities for young people – lenge seemed insurmountable. across the country. Aids-free generation is in sight – especially for women. Scientists were projecting that From next year, the South but the story doesn’t end there. The Pepfar programme half of South Africa’s young African government – with The next chapter in the struggle Dreams – Determined, Resilient, people would die of Aids. Pepfar’s support – will provide HIV is unfolding. Empowered, Aids-Free, Mentored, At the closing of the conference, counselling and testing to more Despite considerable progress, and Safe young women – is the President Nelson Mandela’s appeal than 13 million South Africans a girls and young women remain linchpin of this campaign. to the delegates was: “Something year, cumulatively have 4.2 million highly vulnerable to HIV infection. We have reached a pivotal point must be done as a matter of the people on HIV treatment, and Adolescent girls are up to in the HIV/Aids fight. Reaching greatest urgency.” reach 1.2 million people through eight times more likely to be our shared goal will take the efforts No country could have met the prevention activities, including infected with HIV than their male of all sectors, working side by side: enormous challenge presented by HIV awareness, prevention of contemporaries. the government, Pepfar, the Global the HIV epidemic alone. mother-to-child transmission of South Africa has the highest Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis As a result, more than 10 HIV, and voluntary medical male number – about 2 000 – of new HIV and Malaria, the UN family, the years ago, the South African circumcision. infections a week among young private sector and civil society. and US governments forged an Our goal is to make the biggest women. The US and South Africa are unprecedented partnership to difference in the shortest time. It’s hard to imagine that more committed to facing the challenge address this scourge head-on. Due to this remarkable than 100 000 young women become together to give that one girl – and Through incredible collaboration, millions of lives have infected each year. the tens of thousands just like her – commitment and leadership on been saved. So instead let’s imagine one girl. a chance to realise her dream of an the side of the South African An estimated 6.8 million South One girl who, through the highly PLAN: Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is preparing to implement a ‘test and treat’ approach to HIV. Aids-free future. government, coupled with technical Africans are living with HIV. The effective partnership between student – is trying to chart her president. Would you do anything campaign that focuses on Will you join us in rewriting the assistance and more than $5 billion minister of health has announced Pepfar and the government, course in the world. She has a one- you could to give this one girl a adolescent girls and young women future of South Africa? (R70bn) from the US President’s the government’s commitment avoided HIV at birth because her in-five chance of becoming infected chance of realising her dreams? and has five goals: Emergency Plan for Aids Relief ■ to launching a “test and treat” mother had access to antiretroviral with HIV before she reaches the age We would. That’s why, on ■ Reducing the incidence of Motsoaledi is the minister (Pepfar), South Africa now provides approach to all people living with treatment. of 25. Let’s imagine she dreams of June 24, Deputy President Cyril new HIV infections among young of health and Gaspard is the US more than 3.4 million people with HIV – an initiative the US endorses. This girl – who could be your becoming a mother, a lawyer, or the Ramaphosa launched a national women. ambassador to South Africa. life-saving antiretroviral treatment Last week, as a result of the neighbour, daughter, sister, or Malema’s buffoonery rules him out HERE are only really three parties in this election. The NFP has With a jester at the helm, the EFF has the media attention but the party isn’t self-destructed, the UDM, Minority Front and IFP are all of minor a real contender for power, writes Imraan Buccus Tregional interest, Cope and Agang are a complete mess and the par- ties of the far left – Sopa, the PAC, Wasp, Azapo and the abortive United Front are all irrelevant. The three real players in this election are the ANC, the DA and the EFF. The ANC will take the vast majority of the votes. But there are three big questions in this election: The first is how much the president’s ongoing debacle will cost the governing party. The second is whether or not the DA will take Port Elizabeth and, as some pundits have suggested, perhaps Tshwane too. The third big question is how well the EFF will do. If many ANC supporters, appalled at the moral collapse of a once-great movement, stay at home and the DA and EFF are able to energise their supporters we could be in for an interesting election. Some have suggested that a DA and EFF coalition could conceivably threaten the ANC in Joburg. The EFF is a relatively small party in terms of the number of seats it holds in Parliament. Its actual support on the ground is MEET AND GREET: President Jacob Zuma during a recent visit to Eldorado Park in Joburg’s RED TIDE: EFF leader Julius Malema arrives at Orlando Stadium flanked by the party’s relatively minor. south. PICTURE: BHEKIKHAYA MABASO national chairman, Dali Mpofu, to deliver the party’s manifesto. PICTURE: PHILL MAGAKOE However, it is a huge party in terms of its media savvy and the a buffoon who delights in making the SACP. Eskom is a disaster. The It wouldn’t take long before amount of media attention it wins. outrageous statements, astounded SABC is a disaster. SA Airways is a our cities would look like much Again and again, the party has the world by winning the disaster. like Harare with desperate people leveraged massive media attention Republican presidential nomination We all know this and yet the confronting the police on the streets. from minor support. in the US. EFF continues to speak as if The EFF has substituted crude But the EFF’s major media The Republican Party created nationalisation is a panacea that populism, often presented via asset – its leader Julius Malema this mess for itself by pandering to will magically resolve all our Trump-like buffoonery, for the – is also its major liability. This right-wing populism in the form of problems and create work and serious and painstaking work of is a contradiction that cannot be the Tea Party. wealth for all. building a credible left alternative resolved easily. But it has now created a situation Malema often offers the right from the ground up. Malema’s bombastic personality in which it has a candidate who is diagnosis. Of course Malema’s gift for and quick wit mean that he can turn simply not electable. He very seldom offers the right spin and spectacle have won the almost any situation to his short- The EFF has put itself in a treatment for the disease, though. party a real base while the narrow term advantage when it comes to similar situation. If we were governed by the dogmatism of parties like Sopa media attention. The party has encouraged EFF and if the party actually tried and Wasp have consigned them to While members of the public buffoonery and cheap populism to to implement its programme we permanent irrelevance. enjoy the spectacle of his larger- garner media attention and create would, very quickly, end up where Populism is a far better electoral than-life character, they are not a stir. Zimbabwe is now. prospect than narrow dogmatism. fools. We all remember that Malema This has worked very well Our economy would crash and But it needs to be accompanied was once Jacob Zuma’s most indeed. there would be destitution on a far by the sort of serious political militant supporter. But every time Malema makes greater scale than we face. work that can articulate popular We all remember that he was the kind of outrageous comment It would take just a few months aspirations to viable political once a tenderpreneur and tax that pushes more reasonable voices for the government to run out of strategies for change. dodger. We all remember that he was out of the limelight he makes it money. Once grants and salaries Until the EFF is able to achieve once an enthusiastic Bob Mugabe harder for the public to consider could not be paid, there would be a this it will remain in the role of the supporter. him a serious contender for public real crisis. Shakespearean fool, always poking Of course Malema was wise office. The temptation to follow the fun at the king but with no chance enough to jump ship when the tide Playing the role of the Zimbabwean route and just print of ever becoming the king.