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Resolutions of the PATAM Conference, March 3-5, 2004 Harare, Zimbabwe
Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM)
March 05, 2004

We, members of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) who have gathered here in Harare from 3-5 March 2004 to draw up civil society strategies to ensure rapid scale-up of anti-retroviral therapy in Southern Africa understand that everyone in the world is vulnerable to HIV infection and know that HIV-positive people in Africa, particularly women and other vulnerable groups, experience great challenges that must be addressed urgently.

We know and understand that there are numerous factors and actors that hamper the provision of affordable life-saving medicines. Some of these include profiteering by pharmaceutical companies, inequitable international trade relationships, poverty, extreme stigma, imbalance of power within patriarchal societies, macroeconomic policies that constrain spending for health care and other social services and a lack of commensurate political commitment by our governments and other leaders to match the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

While we recognise that there are multiple factors with complex interactions influencing access to treatment in Africa and all over the world, we maintain that our governments as the primary bodies we entrust in ensuring our welfare, whether by direct provision of services or creating an enabling environment for service provision, hold first line responsibility in the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Too many of our sisters, brothers, friends, fathers and mothers have died needlessly as we have debated ad nauseam and otherwise been in meaningless conflict with each other. We cannot afford to dither any longer.

Therefore, while we welcome reports from country representatives across Southern Africa that treatment rollout is either on the verge of, or has commenced in most countries across the region, we demand an immediate roll-out and rapid scale up of treatment across the continent. Together with our national, regional and international allies we stand ready to provide any support necessary, but also reserve the right to resort to any other available tools--specifically our collective power--if treatment continues to be but a dream for too many of us.

In particular, we commit ourselves:

• genuine political leadership from our governments and other people in positions of influence,
• greater and respectful representation of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) and other vulnerable groups in all decision-making processes pertaining to access to treatment,
• that rollout of anti-retroviral therapy be entwined with rebuilding our health systems,
• that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFTAM) in partnership with activists develop a ‘model proposal’ to be made publicly available to support development of stronger GFATM proposals,
• and that international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group cease in constraining responses against HIV/AIDS at country level.

We demand:

• genuine political leadership from our governments and other people in positions of influence,
• greater and respectful representation of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) and other vulnerable groups in all decision-making processes pertaining to access to treatment,
• that rollout of anti-retroviral therapy be entwined with rebuilding our health systems,
• that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFTAM) develop a model proposal to be made publicly available to support development of stronger GFATM proposals,
• and that international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group cease in constraining responses against HIV/AIDS at country level.

Issued by PATAM delegates in Harare

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