The Debt Crisis and its Impact on HIV/ AIDS Orphaned Children in South Africa
Abstract
The Debt Crisis and its impact on HIV/ AIDS orphaned children in South Africa was
studied. The study revealed that most of the countries in Southern Africa have
acknowledge the escalation of HIV/AIDS on woman and children, how ever, very few
countries in the region have programmes and strategies in place to deal with the
problem. The study revealed that the situation is worsened by the burden of debt
repayment facing the majority of these countries. The debt crises in these countries has
influence on the escalation of HIV/AIDS affecting children in two destructive ways, first
governments with overwhelming foreign debt repayment obligations are forced to cut
back on what they might otherwise allocate to basic social services including funds
which could be used for HIV/AIDS advocacy and prevention.
The study further revealed that affected countries are unable to address the challenges
of HIV/AIDS and its escalation among woman and Orphaned children. Secondly, export
earnings that go to service foreign debts are not available to pay for imports, especially
medical and other essential social services and welfare facilities. In the majority of
these countries such as Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa the affected
children and woman have no access to medical services and other forms of health care
related to HIV/ AIDS.
The study recommend that affected countries should strengthen and support the
capacity of families to protect and care for their children. The theoretical concepts in
this paper predict that governments with unchanged discount rates in the long run will
respond to debt relief by running up new debts or by running down assets.
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