news analysis advocacy
tips on searching

Search AfricaFocus and 9 Partner Sites

 

 

Visit the AfricaFocus
Country Pages

Algeria
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central Afr. Rep.
Chad
Comoros
Congo (Brazzaville)
Congo (Kinshasa)
Côte d'Ivoire
Djibouti
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
São Tomé
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda
Western Sahara
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail!

Print this page

Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived document may not work.


Africa: Rich Countries Stall on New AIDS Funding

AFRICA ACTION
Africa Policy E-Journal
July 19, 2003 (030719)

Africa: Rich Countries Stall on New AIDS Funding (Reposted from sources cited below)

Meeting in Paris to consider additional funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, donors added a few additional promises and little new funding to meet an expected shortfall of $500 million to $800 million this year, with an additional $3 billion needed to cover grants in 2004. Meanwhile, President Bush is urging Congress to restrict U.S. grants to the Fund to only $200 million a year. European countries have yet to meet the expectation that they would pledge another $1 billion. In comparison, the cost of the war in Iraq is now estimated by the Pentagon at $3.9 billion each month, or $130 million a day. The $200 million U.S. Global Fund contribution proposed by Bush for one year thus amounts to little more than 36 hours of war expenses in Iraq.

This posting contains a press release from the Global Fund putting as positive a spin as possible on new promises, a June 17 letter from the White House explicitly urging Congress not to provide more money than the President's request of only $200 million for the Global Fund and $2 billion total for 2004 funding, a brief note from Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS reports on the status on congressional action as of Friday, and excerpts from an opinion piece by Jeffrey Sachs commenting on the default by both Europe and the U.S.

Another posting today contains several statements by African AIDS activists released during and after President Bush's Africa trip.

+++++++++++++++++end summary/introduction+++++++++++++++++++++++

Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Global Fund Press Release 16 July 2003

http://www.globalfundatm.org

For more information, contact Jon Liden at +41 79 244 6006, email jon.liden@theglobalfund.org or Robert Bourgoing at +41 22 791 1714, email robert.bourgoing@theglobalfund.org.

Presidents of the European Commission and France commit to a billion dollars from Europe for the Global Fund

Paris - At an international conference to highlight the progress of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, European Commission President Romano Prodi committed personally to fight for a one billion dollar contribution from Europe for 2004.

"I am the guarantor for the one billion," President Prodi said at the closing ceremony for the International Conference to Support the Global Fund. "But you must respect that the European Union is a democracy of 15 sovereign states, and we don't always agree on everything. Sometimes we work a little like the turtle in the fable: we may sometimes work slowly, but we can be trusted to reach our goals in the long run."

In his closing speech, French President Jacques Chirac reaffirmed his call for Europe to contribute one billion dollars each year, while calling for the United States to also allocate one billion dollars each year to the Fund.

"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an outstanding instrument," President Chirac said. "It was set up in record time. It is already operating on the ground, saving lives. Naturally we will assess its efficiency very carefully. But I am convinced that this multilateral response expresses, better than any other, the ideal of solidarity and collective action that must impel us."

Earlier in the day, other leaders had also pronounced their support for the Global Fund.

"I believe in the Global Fund," said Nelson Mandela in an address to the conference. "I believe that it has shown great progress, and that we must, in turn, commit more support to its success and future."

Mr Mandela addressed 250 delegates consisting of ministers of health and foreign affairs, senior development officials, private sector executives and non-governmental organizations in a conference hosted by the French government. The conference was co-chaired by US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, the French Minister of Development and Francophonie, Pierre André Wiltzer, and the French Minister for Health, Family and Disabled Persons, Jean-François Mattei.

There was a unified call by the speakers for sufficient new money to ensure that the Global Fund can finance the rapidly increasing needs of programs in countries with heavy burdens of disease.

Some countries announced new pledges to the Global Fund. A number of other countries re-confirmed their support.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would accelerate its payment of the remaining US$ 50 million of a previous US$ 100 million commitment in order to help increase the amount of funds available for the third round of funding coming up in October. The French-based public relations group Publicis unveiled a long-term pro bono collaboration to improve awareness of the Global Fund.

"Turning the tide of AIDS, TB and malaria is a priority second to none," said Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations in his address. "The Fund is there to fill a specific and substantial gap to scale up by providing effective funding (to fight the three diseases)."

The Global Fund is a funding mechanism for country-based programs of proven interventions against the three diseases. Initial funding is provided for two years, with continued support dependent on program performance. In its first two rounds of grant applications, the Global Fund approved grants worth US$ 1.5 billion over two years to more than 150 programs in 92 countries. This money will provide more than 500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS with antiretroviral treatment, and medical and educational support for half a million children orphaned due to AIDS. It will also enable the detection and treatment of two million additional cases of tuberculosis, and deliver 20 million combination drug treatments for drug-resistant malaria.

Since March, the Global Fund has doubled its disbursement every month and is on track to provide US$200 million to its recipients by the end of the year. Through 2004, US$2.6 billion has been pledged to the Fund, with an additional US$2.1 billion pledged for 2005 to 2008. An additional US$3 billion is required to fund its next three rounds of approved grant applications.


THE WHITE HOUSE,

Washington, July 17, 2003.

Hon. Bill Frist,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.

DEAR LEADER FRIST:

It is my understanding that an amendment regarding funding for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria may be offered today to the Department of Defense FY2004 appropriations bill currently under consideration on the Senate floor.

I want to reiterate the Administration's strong support for the FY2004 budget request of $2 billion for all international HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria activities, including $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria. This request is a solid first step in fulfilling the President's commitment of providing $15 billion over the next five years to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, the Caribbean and around the world.

I recently finished traveling to Africa with the President where he saw first-hand the positive impact that current U.S. funding is having in caring for the sick, providing treatment for individuals living with HIV/AIDS and extending lives. He also witnessed the vast infrastructure and capacity challenges that need to be addressed in order to scale-up many of these efforts.

It is by careful design that the President's FY2004 budget request is for $2 billion. This request was based on the sound judgment that funds in excess of this amount could not be spend effectively in this first year. These funds will be spent in a focused manner, increasing each year, to efficiently and effectively create the necessary training, technology, and infrastructure based needed to ensure delivery of appropriate medical treatment protocols and the long term success of this initiative.

These funds are vital to our efforts to combat HIV/AIDS abroad, but must be spent in the right way, at the right time. Similarly, efforts to increase funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria are not appropriate at this time. Currently, the United States is responsible for over 40% of all contributions made to the Global Fund. We have reached a critical time in the Global Fund's development, and other nations must join the U.S. in supporting the work of the Global Fund.

For the reasons stated above, the Administration strongly opposes any efforts to increase funding beyond the $2 billion requested in the President's FY2004 budget. I appreciate your unwavering leadership on this issue and look forward to the continued strong bipartisan support of the Senate in ensuring the success of this lifesaving initiative.

Sincerely,

Dr. Joseph F. O'Neill
Director, Office of National AIDS Policy.

From the Congressional Record 17 July 2003


Kaiser Daily News HIV/AIDS Report
A service of kaisernetwork.org
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/hiv

February 18, 2003

1. Senate Appropriations Committee Passes Foreign Aid Bill With $1.4B To Fight AIDS; Democrats Will Push for More Money

The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved an $18.1 billion fiscal year 2004 foreign aid spending bill, including $1.4 billion to fight AIDS, but Democrats said that they will push for more money to fight the epidemic, Reuters reports. Additional money for the five-year, $15 billion global AIDS initiative (HR 1298) is expected to be included in other spending bills that the committee has yet to consider, according to Reuters (Allen, Reuters, 7/17). The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved its version of the FY 2004 foreign aid spending bill, which includes $1.43 billion for AIDS. The House so far has approved a total of $2 billion for the AIDS initiative in FY 2004, an increase of about $500 million over FY 2003 spending. The full House on July 10 approved a bill (HB 6470) to provide funding for labor, education and health programs, including $644 million for foreign AIDS research and prevention and $155 million for combating other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/17). The House, which authorized up to $3 billion for the fight against AIDS, expects to appropriate about $2.1 billion -- a 70% increase in spending over last year's total -- according to the Christian Science Monitor (Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor, 7/18).

Amendment Expected in Senate Floor Debate

The $1.4 billion in the Senate measure includes $700 million for U.S.-run programs under the global AIDS initiative, up to $250 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and $150 million for the International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative, according to CongressDaily/AM (Caruso/Hess, CongressDaily/AM, 7/18). President Bush in June 2002 announced a three-year, $500 million international HIV/AIDS initiative focused on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Africa and the Caribbean (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 6/19/02). Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, said that when the measure is debated on the floor he plans to offer an amendment to the bill that would increase HIV/AIDS spending by $1 billion (CongressDaily/AM, 7/18). The full Senate last week approved 78-18 a nonbinding resolution calling for $3 billion in 2004 to fight AIDS overseas, even if the amount exceeds the ceiling mandated in Congress's annual budget resolution (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/17).

Defense Bill

The full Senate yesterday passed a $368.6 billion defense spending bill (S 1382), voting 71-24 to defeat an amendment by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) that would have transferred $1.1 billion from defense spending to the AIDS initiative (Guggenheim, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/18). Republicans yesterday said that AIDS funding should not be in the defense bill but should be "dealt with in other bills," according to Reuters (Reuters, 7/17). The Senate defense bill will be reconciled with a similar measure passed last week in the House (Guggenheim, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 7/17). Democrats and AIDS advocates have said that U.S. credibility will be damaged if Congress fails to appropriate $3 billion for the first year of the AIDS initiative (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/11). "Just as we feared, the $3 billion turned out to be an empty promise to some of the most desperate people in the world," Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said (Reuters, 7/17).


Jeffrey Sachs, "A Miserly Response to a Global Emergency"
Financial Times, July 17, 2003 (http://www.ft.com)

[excerpts only]
.
A miserly response to a global emergency
By Jeffrey Sachs

The writer is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University

The donor meeting in Paris yesterday on behalf of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria definitely had its surreal aspects. The chairmanship of the Global Fund board is held by Tommy Thompson, the US health secretary, in spite of the fact that President George W. Bush has essentially starved the fund of financial resources. So there was the peculiar spectacle of the health secretary gamely talking up the very fund that his president had been undermining.

The broader context was also bizarre. All speakers agreed that the three pandemics are out of control and that the campaign against them is of unique importance. Eloquent testimonials demonstrated the value of the fund in dozens of impoverished countries. Yet at the end of the day, the rich country governments only inched up their contributions and failed to commit enough to meet the fund's minimum need of $3bn for programmes in 2004.

The US is a case in point. ... [the U.S. contribution] amounts to a derisory 70 cents per American ... Mr Thompson noted at the meeting that the US contribution might be nudged up to $500m or more by Congress but he did not mention that Mr Bush had so far opposed that initiative. When a White House official briefed me a few months ago on why Mr Bush was bypassing the Global Fund, he said simply that the president did not believe in committing taxpayers' dollars to multilateral initiatives of which the US is not in charge.

We should not be overly impressed by US claims that it is doing enough in other ways. The US has failed utterly to get treatment to dying Aids sufferers, despite the life-saving value of antiretroviral drugs. In the first 2 1/2 years of the Bush presidency, only a handful of Africans have received combination antiretroviral therapy as a result of US bilateral programmes; meanwhile 5m Africans have died of the disease and another 30m are currently infected. ...

Nor should we be taken in by claims that the budget is too tight. The Bush administration ... is spending $3.9bn each month to station troops in Iraq - an amount that would more than fully finance the Global Fund in 2004, and save millions of lives in the process.

None of this can excuse Europe's neglectfulness. Earlier this year, Jacques Chirac, the French president, sought to mobilise a European contribution of $1bn for next year. This would amount to about $3 per European - roughly the cost of one beer. The donor meeting yesterday was initially envisaged as the occasion where that $1bn would be announced. But it was not to be. ...

Some of the blame for this lies with Mr Bush. At the time of the Evian summit, he told the other Group of Eight leaders that the US would indeed scale up its own contributions if Europe, Japan and other donors would do the same. A practical approach widely discussed at the time was $1bn from the US, $1bn from Europe and $1bn from Japan and the rest - essentially the same $3 per person spread across the 1bn people living in the rich world. But just as the European leaders began to mobilise their $1bn, Mr Bush got back in touch with them to say he had spoken out of turn: the US would in fact be sticking with the $200m contribution it had originally envisaged. This took the steam out of the European initiative. Europe should be able to act with or without the US - but the negative message from the US definitely broke the momentum.

... while the rich countries may continue with their excuses, they count for nothing with the dying people of impoverished countries. Yesterday, while the rich countries gave their speeches and paraded their paltry generosity, Aids, tuberculosis and malaria claimed the lives of another 15,000 Africans.

+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++

Date distributed (ymd): 030719
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +US policy focus+ +health+


The Africa Action E-Journal is a free information service provided by Africa Action, including both original commentary and reposted documents. Africa Action provides this information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that advance economic, political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.

URL for this file: http://www.africafocus.org/docs03ej/gf0307.php