Expanding access to ART in Sub-Saharan Africa: an advocacy agenda for health systems development and resource generation

Providing universal, effective and sustainable access to ART in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) requires a broader advocacy agenda encompassing the development of health care systems and the generation of much larger resources for the health sector. Presently, health care delivery in SSA is characterised by a patchwork of poorly co-ordinated and governed public, NGO and private services, a situation which contributes to the undermining of national stewardship and coherent health planning. The challenge of expanding access to ART in SSA cannot be divorced from the challenge of liberating countries from poverty. The international public health community needs to use its voice and its authority to support ongoing campaigns to, for example, eradicate the debt burden and to raise public finance at the global level.