CAFOD’s response

Filipino campaigners marked White Band Day by rating their Government's performance on the Millennium Development Goals. [GCAP Philippines]

Stance, priorities and ways of working
CAFOD, HIV and the Catholic Church
The Millennium Development Goals and HIV

The impact HIV and AIDS have on individuals and communities varies depending on a variety of different factors.

The complexity of the challenges surrounding HIV and AIDS demand a cohesive, wide-ranging response.

CAFOD supports a variety of approaches to work aimed at preventing the spread of HIV, caring for those affected by it and supporting those who work to change systems that negatively affect people with or most at risk to HIV.

Prevention

Supporting community based programmes which educate people about how HIV is transmitted and help individuals identify the best ways to reduce their risk to HIV.

CAFOD supports programmes that work for social, economic and legislative change within communities to reduce people’s vulnerability that can lead to HIV infection.

Our partners’ programmes also improve the quality of life for people living with HIV. This combination of approaches together forms a comprehensive approach to prevention.

Care and Support

CAFOD recognises that caring for those with HIV includes and is much broader than just healthcare. We help those communities most affected by HIV by supporting local programmes which provide counselling, home-based health care, income generation activities, skills training and support for children orphaned or otherwise affected by HIV and AIDS. CAFOD recognises the link between care and support, and prevention.

Advocacy

CAFOD supports organisations both in the UK and overseas in influencing policy makers to change policies and legislation that are detrimental to or inadequately protect people affected by HIV and AIDS.

CAFOD promotes change to stimulate poverty reduction and gender equality, both of which will result in the tackling of HIV infection.

HIV work and the Catholic Church

CAFOD’s work, including its HIV-related work, has the full support of the Bishops of England and Wales.

Catholic Social Teaching requires us to work against injustices and discrimination, whether against individuals or countries.

Therefore, we are required to fight issues such as poverty and discrimination, which make people susceptible to HIV infection, in turn possibly leading to their unfair treatment by society and the violation of their human rights

The Millennium Development Goals and HIV

The Millennium Development Goals impact on the HIV pandemic in two ways.

Firstly, AIDS is specifically addressed in the Millennium Summit Declaration, whereby the assembled governments resolved among other things, by 2015:

• To have halted, and begun to reverse the spread of HIV, of malaria and other major diseases that affect humanity.
• To provide special assistance to children affected by HIV and AIDS.

Secondly, the Millennium Development Goals address the economic, political, social and cultural factors that affect individuals and communities vulnerability to HIV.

This is crucial to a sustainable and expanded international response and is integral to success in alleviating the impact of AIDS.

See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals

CAFOD is fully committed to pursuing all of the Millennium Development Goals through its development and humanitarian response work. Find out more >>