section_path: Demographics/Health/AIDS in Africa
section_name: AIDS in Africa
paragraph_text: AIDS in Africa
  
  The AU has been active in addressing the AIDS pandemic in Africa. In 2001, the AU established AIDS Watch Africa to coordinate and mobilise a continent-wide response. Sub-Saharan Africa, especially southern and eastern Africa, is the most affected area in the world. Though this region is home to only 6.2% of the world's population, it is also home to half of the world's population infected with HIV. While the measurement of HIV prevalence rates has proved methodologically challenging, more than 20% of the sexually active population of many countries of southern Africa may be infected, with South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, and Zimbabwe all expected to have a decrease in life expectancy by an average of 6.5 years. The pandemic has had massive implications for the economy of the continent, reducing economic growth rates by 2–4% across Africa.
  
  In July 2007, the AU endorsed two new initiatives to combat the AIDS crisis, including a push to recruit, train and integrate two million community health workers into the continent's healthcare systems.
  
  In January 2012, the African Union Assembly requested that the African Union Commission would work out "a roadmap of shared responsibility to draw on African efforts for a viable health funding with support of traditional and emerging partners to address AIDS dependency response". Once created, the roadmap (as it is officially known) provided a group of solutions that would enhance the shared responsibility and global solidarity for AIDS, TB, and Malaria responses in Africa by 2015. The roadmap was organised into three pillars: diversified financing, access to medicines, and enhanced health governance. The roadmap held stakeholders accountable for the realisation of these solutions between 2012 and 2015.
  
  The first pillar, diversified financing, ensures that countries begin to develop a country specific financial sustainability plans with clear targets, and identify and maximise opportunities to diversify funding sources in order to increase the domestic resource allocation to AIDS and other diseases.
  
  The second pillar, access to affordable and quality-assured medicines, tries to promote and facilitate investing in leading medicine hub manufacturers in Africa, accelerate and strengthen medicine regulatory harmonisation, and create legislation that would help to protect the knowledge of the researchers who develop these life-saving medicines.
  
  The third pillar, enhanced leadership and governance, tries to invest in programs that support people and communities to prevent HIV and ensure that leadership at all levels is mobilised to implement the roadmap. There are several organisations that will ensure the smooth implementation of the roadmap, including NEPAD, UNAIDS, WHO, and several other UN partners.