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.