By Hazwell Kanjaye

15th August, 2001.

Widening poverty, HIV/AIDS, trade, debt relief and conflict resolution dominate this week's annual summit of leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in Malawi.

The three-day meeting, which is being attended by ten SADC leaders, begun Sunday in Blantyre, the business capital of Malawi. SADC groups South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Seychelles, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

HIV/AIDS is one of the top issues on the summit's agenda. "As we are meeting today, HIV/AIDS continues to pause major threats to the development of our region. The reality is that today we have in the region a traumatic situation where either grandparents or children head households," said President Sam Nujoma of Namibia as he opened the summit.

Nujoma said about 40 per cent of SADC's 195 million people are trapped in extreme poverty, while HIV/AIDS has become the most critical development challenge which is eroding the region's most productive citizens.

In diamond-rich Botswana, for example, 35 per cent of persons aged 15-49 are HIV-positive, while the region's economic giant South Africa has more HIV-positive people than any country in the world - about four million people.

A new United Nations report, "HIV/AIDS: Implications for Poverty Reduction", says the pandemic is shaving off up to two per cent of annual economic growth in many SADC countries and will shrink total Gross National Product (GNP) of many of the countries up to 40 per cent within 20 years.

"This is certainly an unacceptable situation and more should be done to reverse the trend," said SADC executive secretary Prega Ramsamy, while Nujoma called for increased investment in research for vaccine, generic drugs, treatment and care for those living with the disease. But the heavy debt, collectively estimated at 80.2 billion US dollars in 1999, limits the region's capacity to fight the disease.

Overseas aid to the SADC region has fallen drastically while foreign direct investment is down from 5.3 billion dollars in 1999 to 3.9 billion dollars in 2000, according to the UNCTAD.

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