In Zambia, where I spoke to the education Minister when I visited the country, there are now more teachers dying every year from HIV-AIDS than are being trained in teacher training colleges. This has potentially serious long-term implications for the international effort under way to provide universal primary education for all children by 2015. As men and women fall ill, their ability to participate in the labour force is affected, resulting in a decline in agricultural productivity. The huge food crisis in southern Africa to which I have referred and the emerging crisis in Ethiopia have been greatly exacerbated by the high incidence of HIV-AIDS in these countries. While its origins can be attributed to a number of factors, HIV-AIDS is turning cyclical food shortages into full-scale humanitarian disasters.