World can end AIDS epidemic by 2030, finance conference hears

The world can end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, the United Nations said on Tuesday, highlighting global success in rolling out life-saving drugs over the last 15 years.

The UN Millennium Development Goal to halt and reverse the spread of the disease has been achieved, said UNAIDS, the global body’s agency focusing on the disease.

UNAIDS is driving efforts to end the epidemic by 2030 by enabling everyone to have access to prevention services, treatment and support.

“Ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 is ambitious, but realistic, as the history of the past 15 years has shown,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report released at four-day financing summit in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

Some 15 million people are receiving antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS, a staggering increase from less than 700,000 in 2000.

AIDS-related deaths have dropped more than 40 per cent since 2004 to 1.2 million a year, the report said. New HIV infections have fallen by 35 per cent since 2001 to 2 million a year in 2014.

Investment in HIV/AIDS surged to almost $22 billion in 2015 from less than $5 billion in 2001.

Last month, Cuba became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Tax dodging

Meanwhile, backers of a new initiative, dubbed “tax inspectors without borders”, say it can help poor countries crackdown on tax dodging and fund their own development, despite scepticism from advocacy groups.

Nearly $1 trillion in illicit finance, stemming from tax evasion, crime and corruption, is estimated to leave poor countries each year, according to Global Financial Integrity, a policy research group.

Under the so-called “tax inspectors without borders” initiative, released on Monday, experts from well-functioning states will help officials in poorer countries carry out audits to detect tax dodging, mainly by multinationals.

“For too long, some multinationals have used aggressive tax planning to reduce their tax bills, or avoid paying taxes altogether,” said Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Mr Ban told world leaders at the opening of the four-day financing conference in Ethiopia they must put aside “narrow self-interest” to break a deadlock over how to finance the UN’s bold new global development agenda.

Some 190 nations hope to agree on how to bankroll the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include ending poverty and hunger, combating climate change and achieving gender equality by 2030.

In a world where growth is slowing, foreign assistance budgets are shrinking, and scepticism towards aid and multinationals is growing, finding the resources to achieve the ambitious goals will be tough.

Trillions not billions

The SDGs, expected to be adopted in September, are estimated to cost between $3.3 and $4.5 trillion a year (€2.9 and €4.1 trillion), according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

Multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as the International Monetary Fund on Friday signalled plans to extend more than $400 billion (€363 billion) in financing over the next three years to help mobilise resources to achieve the SDGs.

“We need trillions, not billions, of dollars to accomplish these goals, and the money will come from many sources: developing countries, private sector investment, donors, and international financial institutions,” Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group said in a statement.

The UN chief said he was disappointed negotiators had been unable to come to an agreement despite lengthy talks in New York over the past month. He said new avenues of financing needed to be explored.

In many low-income countries, taxes as a percent of GDP are under 15 per cent against at least 24 per cent in advanced economies, International Monetary Fund data show.

Mispricing exports and imports is one method some multinationals use to shift their profits to low-tax regimes, and deprive poor countries of money owed them.

Advocacy groups were sceptical that the OECD could act as an impartial adviser, given that some of its members are regarded as tax havens.

In the initiative’s pilot phase, Britain sent experts managed by the accounting firm PWC, which helps multinationals lower their tax bills, to help with auditing in Rwanda, said Tove Maria Ryding, the European Network on Debt and Development’s tax justice policy manager.

“It’s a small part in the jigsaw,” said Alvin Mosioma, executive director of the Tax Justice Network-Africa lobby group.

“So long as we have tax havens across the world that are providing the breeding ground for tax evasion and tax avoidance, we will not be able to have effective capacity for development.”