HIV/AIDS Affected Families in Shanxi Supported by Microfinance

HIV/AIDS Affected Families in Shanxi Supported by Microfinance

January 23, 2007

UNDP Initiative Increases Incomes of HIV/AIDS Affected
Households Through Microcredit Scheme


    BEIJING, Jan. 23 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- A conference
was held today in Beijing highlighting lessons learned from
a United Nations microfinance initiative that has empowered
people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Shanxi province to
lift themselves out of poverty and restore hope in their
lives.

    (Logo:
http://www.xprn.com.cn:9080/xprn/sa/20061107113358-34.jpg
)

    To date, over 130 households affected by HIV/AIDS have
benefited from the project's microfinance scheme and many
other affected households are eager to join it.  Through
starting household enterprises or scaling up existing
income generating activities, such as animal husbandry,
some beneficiaries have doubled or tripled their annual
incomes. 

    "Microfinance is such a powerful mechanism for
empowerment and poverty reduction because it unleashes the
drive and innovation of the poor, including people living
with HIV/AIDS, to improve their own lives and grow out of
deprivation," said Alessandra Tisot, Senior Deputy
Resident Representative of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) in China when addressing the conference. 

    Entitled "Community-Based HIV/AIDS Care,
Prevention and Poverty Reduction", the project aims to
improve livelihoods, self-reliance and human dignity for
people living with HIV/AIDS and their families through
enhanced skills and access to microfinance services; and to
build a replicable model for poverty reduction among people
living with or affected by the virus. 

    The project is a joint effort between UNDP, the China
International Centre for Economic & Technical Exchanges
(CICETE) under the Ministry of Commerce and the National
Center for STD/AIDS Prevention and Control. 

    Shanxi is one of the provinces in Central China that
experienced a HIV epidemic among former commercial plasma
and blood donors.  The total numbers of people living with
HIV/AIDS in both project counties around Yuncheng city
account for nearly one half of the whole province. 

    According to the 2003 data, poverty is prevalent in
both counties.  In one county, 28 percent of the population
lived below the national poverty line, while in the other,
it accounted for 40 percent.

    "In early of the 1990s, many villagers in Yuncheng
were affected by HIV due to illegal blood selling,"
said Wu Juxian, vice mayor of Yuncheng city. "These
families faced various difficulties in their lives -- many
went back into poverty besides suffering physically from
the disease.  Their children dropped out of school and they
faced severe discrimination." 

    According to Wu, with the help of microfinance, over
130 households have benefited from microfinance loans; over
1,200 people have received material assistance, technical
support and training and psychological support; over 400
children were provided school fees, stationeries and other
study materials. 

    Based on extensive experience with microfinance
operations in 48 rural counties in China over the past few
years, UNDP and its executing partner CICETE advocated an
approach that addresses the root causes of HIV/AIDS by
linking it to poverty reduction.  UNDP and CICETE provided
guidance and broadened multi-sector partnerships by
selecting the Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCC), which has
extensive networks down to township and village levels
across rural China, as the implementing microfinance
institution.

    "While the poor have little physical or financial
capital, there are no limits to their creativity,
innovation and entrepreneurial spirit," said Tisot. 
"That fact that numerous men and women living with HIV
have successfully improved their quality of life through
microcredit clearly demonstrates that AIDS affected
families do not require charity but opportunity -- the same
opportunities the rest of us too often take for
granted."

    As in previous microfinance projects, financial
literacy was one of the first steps in mobilizing people
living with HIV/AIDS and their families to participate in
the project and was strengthened through the project.

    One of the most important aspects involving people
living with HIV/AIDS is the need to maintain
confidentiality on their HIV status.  Therefore, special
training programmes were conducted for loan managers and
other staff members of the Rural Credit Cooperatives.  The
loan agreements state explicitly that the cooperatives
should not disclose the HIV status of the beneficiary. 

    UNDP provided guidance in modifying the financial
management practices which resulted from its previous
large-scale microfinance operations in rural China, and
provided HIV/AIDS sensitization training to loan staff and
government personnel at various levels including the Rural
Credit Cooperative (RCC).  The project also provided
training to the local Center for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) staff who assisted in the mobilization of
AIDS affected families to apply for microfinance services
from the RCC.

    Through the dissemination workshops, UNDP and its
national partners intend to demonstrate the project's
feasibility, its importance to local development goals and
its replicability in other areas of high HIV-prevalence and
high levels of poverty.  In the near future, UNDP in
partnership with local governments hope to further
integrate and scale up this model to include ethnic
minority areas which are also heavily affected by AIDS.

    UNDP fosters human development to empower women and men
to build better lives in China. As the UN's development
network, UNDP draws on a world of experience to assist
China in developing its own solutions to the country's
development challenges. Through partnerships and
innovation, UNDP works to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals and an equitable Xiao Kang society by
reducing poverty, strengthening the rule of law, promoting
environmental sustainability, and fighting HIV/AIDS. 
http://www.undp.org.cn




    For more information, please contact: 

     Edmund Settle, 
     Programme Manager on HIV/AIDS
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]


SOURCE  United Nations Development Programme