By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Barcelona -- AIDS could kill 68 million people by the year 2020, according to the most recent global analysis conducted by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The numbers are so staggering that the reality of people affected and families shattered can easily be lost in the bewildering statistics. In reports presented this week at the XIV International AIDS conference, however, experts are attempting to outline a picture of nations where populations are devastated by the epidemic.

The International Labor Office (ILO) presented an analysis of how sustainable development will be undermined by the loss of human resources expected to result from the epidemic. In a July 11 press briefing, ILO economist Desmond Cohen said nations can not achieve the goals of sustainable development if they continue to lose the people who know how to run the machinery of civilized society.

"How (do you) keep schools functioning, or transport systems functioning, or water supplies functioning, or police services functioning when 20-30 percent of the people you have trained are, in fact, dying of HIV/AIDS?" Cohen asked rhetorically.

Cohen says the ILO analysis, focusing on the most seriously affected nations in sub-Saharan Africa, found that up to 30 percent of teacher positions in Botswana are unfilled, largely because of deaths from AIDS. In the same country, predictions are that 40 percent of health workers could be lost to the disease over the next ten years.

AIDS is causing a loss of human resources at what Cohen described as a "terrifying" and "intensifying" rate. As the productive workforce diminishes, he said, the goals of sustainable development become ever more difficult to achieve. In turn, a depleted workforce becomes less capable of passing on its knowledge, skills and training to a new generation of workers, creating a further downward spiral in a nation's ability to improve productivity and expand wealth.

Cohen links his work on labor and productivity to an earlier study presented at the conference on the exploding number of AIDS orphans who will need assistance in the future. He says societies normally ensure perpetuation of themselves through care and nurture of the next generation, but the epidemic will prevent that. "Who's going to pay for the education and the other kinds of inputs that these children will require?" Cohen said. "What are the implications?"

The ILO study says that the epidemic is depleting wealth for both families and governments, a trend which will cause falling demand, reduced investments and outputs and declining per capita income.

Franklyn Lisk, the director of ILO's Global Program on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work said economists must begin to account for these trends as they make economic forecasts and set long-term national goals

Current economic modeling methods "drastically underestimate the magnitude of HIV," Cohen said, in their failure to take account of the loss of human resources. For instance, he said traditional methods for estimating gross national product usually underestimate all that women do to support their families at the village level. But as the epidemic strikes deeper into female populations -- as predictions say it will -- the loss of their contributions will be sorely felt, Cohen said.

Further international aid for workforce training and the development of human capital is the answer, Cohen said, estimating that the need could reach $50,000 million. He emphasizes that that figure is above and beyond health-care-sector aid for epidemic-related costs. One of the major issues of the Barcelona meeting has been how to raise the $10,000 million that is estimated to be necessary annually to provide proper care, treatment and services for current HIV/AIDS victims. The ILO study does not identify a potential source for the additional aid for the preservation of workforce capability and sustainable development.

The ILO study concludes that "more complex and dynamic" research is needed if leaders are to get a clear understanding of exactly how the epidemic will affect economic structures and the prospects for future development. Further, Cohen suggests that complete restructuring of labor and economic systems may be required if it becomes clear that old structures can not be sustained in a sharply reduced workforce.