Activists, U.N. Hail Bush Pledge of $15 Billion in Five Years
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ARTICLE SUMMARY:
In his State of the Union address last night, U.S. President George
W. Bush urged Congress to approve $15 billion in funds to battle AIDS
in the hardest-hit countries in Africa and the Caribbean over the
next five years, winning praise from HIV/AIDS groups as well as warn-
ings not to move too slowly or abandon the initiative.
You can see the complete version of this story at:
http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/display_stories.asp?objid=3D31727
UN Wire
http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire
In his State of the Union address last night
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
U.S. President George W. Bush urged Congress to approve $15 billion
in funds to battle AIDS in the hardest-hit countries in Africa and
the Caribbean over the next five years, winning praise from HIV/AIDS
groups as well as warnings not to move too slowly or abandon the ini-
tiative.
Citing the rampant rate of the disease in Africa, where almost 30
million have HIV yet only 50,000 are getting the medicine they need,
Bush outlined a plan that would provide anti-retroviral drugs to 2
million Africans, prevent an estimated 7 million new HIV infections
and build social programs to assist the afflicted and the orphaned.
"This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a
plague of nature," he said (Sonya Ross,
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=3Dstory2&cid=3D535&ncid=3D535&e
=3D12&u=3D/ap/20030129/ap_on_re_af/state_of_union_world Associated
Press/Yahoo! News, Jan. 28).
Currently, the United States spends about $1.5 billion annually on
domestic and international AIDS programs, a sum generally viewed as
inadequate. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has said the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
http://www.globalfundatm.org/ needs about $10 billion each year, and
some analysts say the United States should be contributing $2.5 bil-
lion of that (Sheryl Gay Stolberg,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/health/29AIDS.html New York Times,
Jan. 29).
Under Bush's proposal, spending on international efforts to combat
HIV/AIDS would not triple immediately, but would nearly double, to $2
billion, in fiscal 2004 "and ramp up thereafter," according to a
White House fact sheet. About $1 billion of the $10 billion in new
funding would go to the Global Fund. The fund's executive director,
Richard Feachem, has urged the United States to contribute $2.5 bil-
lion to $3 billion over the next two years. Washington has so far
committed $500 million over two years (Paul Blustein,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58383-2003Jan29?language=3Dprinter
Washington Post, Jan. 29).
The Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS welcomed Bush's announcement,
which Executive Director Peter Piot called "an encouraging sign of
the U.S. government's commitment to preventing the further spread of
AIDS in two of the worst-hit regions and to offer urgently needed
care and treatment for those already infected with HIV."
"This initiative," Piot added, "should spur other wealthy countries
to increase their support for global AIDS efforts"
(http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/BushEmergencyPlan290103_en.html
UNAIDS release, Jan. 29).
The Global AIDS Alliance http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/ responded
to Bush's pledge with enthusiasm tempered by pragmatism. Executive
Director Paul Zeitz emphasized the program's need for immediate, not
gradual, funding.
"The President's announcement tonight is a tremendously encouraging
sign that he is taking the issue seriously, not just on a rhetorical
level, but in terms of the budget," Zeitz said. "From a public health
standpoint, a phased-in approach simply won't work. We are extremely
concerned that the president's proposal may not include the amount
health experts are saying is needed in FY 2003-2004 to ramp up the
AIDS response now.... And it is just as vital that this new plan not
rob funds from other effective programs to assist poor countries --
we need to see the details before we can be certain this is, in fact,
new money," he added.
The alliance said the United States has historically exaggerated its
contribution to the worldwide AIDS effort by including the cost of
research in its figures
(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030128/nytu201_1.html Global AIDS Alli-
ance release/Yahoo! Finance, Jan. 29).
Stephen Lewis, U.N. special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, welcomed
Bush's announcement but expressed some skepticism and cautioned that
the promise to fund the war on AIDS must not be broken to free money
for a war on Iraq.
"The promise has been made, the assurance has been given; we have to
make sure this happens," Lewis said. He said he hoped Bush's an-
nouncement would spur other wealthy countries to commit money to
fight the pandemic.
"The whole purpose of the last year has been a drum roll of despera-
tion to get money from Western donors. This, at least, opens the
door," he said (Jonathan Fowlie,
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20030129/wxaids0129/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
Globe and Mail, Jan. 29).
Three weeks ago, Lewis condemned the international community's fail-
ure to fight the AIDS epidemic as "mass murder by complacency" and
stressed that in spite of the West's suspicions that corrupt African
governments pocket AIDS program money, he had seen proof that African
nations were striving to defeat the disease and could succeed, but
only with help
(http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/display_stories.asp?objid=3D31311=
UN Wire, Jan. 8).
Global Fund Asks For $6 Billion By 2004
On Monday, the Global Fund announced that it will seek $6 billion in
additional funds by next year to fight HIV/AIDS.
Feachem made the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland
http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Annual???03 .
"Nothing in recorded human history comes close to AIDS," he
said, citing HIV prevalence rates in southern Africa of 30 to 40 per-
cent and exploding rates in India and China.
Speaking in the same session, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said
AIDS was entirely preventable and that the reason the United States
does not give more money to fight it is that it is "not an election
issue." Clinton said the U.S. government only spends about 1 percent
of its budget on foreign assistance
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