January 29, 2003
World Community Gives Bush AIDS Pledge Mixed Reception
Inter Press Service

While welcoming President George W. Bush's pledge to sharply increase funding for HIV/AIDS programmes overseas, Africa and AIDS activists complain that the plan's funding for the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria remains far short of what is required and targets too few countries.

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - While welcoming President George W. Bush's pledge to sharply increase funding for HIV/AIDS programmes overseas, Africa and AIDS activists complain that the plan's funding for the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria remains far short of what is required and targets too few countries.

They also said Wednesday that the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which is to provide 15 billion dollars to fight the disease over the next five years, will be phased in far too slowly, given the magnitude of the crisis.

Of the 15 billion dollar total, only two billion dollars is to be appropriated for fiscal 2004, which begins next Oct. 1, according to the White House and only one billion dollars will go to the Global Fund.

''The real measure of the president's sincerity will be in the budget numbers for 2003 and 2004,'' said Salih Booker, director of Africa Action. ''Large numbers for 2007 are meaningless to people who will die this year without access to essential medicines.''

Bush announced his new programme, which must be submitted to Congress for approval, during Tuesday night's State of the Union Address, which was devoted chiefly to making the case for a major new round of tax cuts and for war against Iraq without United Nations Security Council approval, if necessary.

But he devoted the middle of his hour-long speech to the HIV/AIDS crisis, noting that nearly 30 million Africans are infected with the virus, including three million children under the age of 15. ''Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence'', Bush said, ''many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away.''

He described his proposed plan as a ''work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa. This comprehensive plan will prevent seven million new AIDS infections, treat at least two million people with life-extending drugs, and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS, and for children orphaned by AIDS.''

Of the 15 billion dollars to be spent, Bush said, 10 billion dollars will be ''new money'' - that is, funds that have not been previously committed - ''to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean''.

According to a White House fact sheet, the initiative will focus on 14 countries. In Africa: Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Zimbabwe, which suffers adult infection rates of more than 25 percent, is not included, apparently due to Washington's unhappiness with the country's dictatorial president, Robert Mugabe. In the Caribbean, Guyana and Haiti will be targeted.

The fact sheet said that the seven million new infections that will be prevented represent 60 percent of the projected 12 million new infections in the target countries. The programme will provide care for 10 million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS orphans, it added.

AIDS activists, who have strongly criticised the administration's lack of leadership in dealing with the global AIDS crisis in the past, generally welcomed the sharp increase in promised U.S. funding.

Stephen Lewis, the U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the programme was a ''dramatic signal'' that at last Washington is willing to deal more realistically with the crisis.

''It's about time that this administration addresses the AIDS pandemic in Africa at the kind of major national forum that it deserves,'' declared Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who heads the Task Force on HIV/AIDS of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). ”I welcome the president's announcement to treat two million people living with HIV.''

But Lee said that she wanted to wait until she could see the specifics of the proposal, including why it does not include more money for the Global Fund and whether the administration intends to take money from other key programmes to fund the new one. ''We cannot afford to rob Peter to pay Paul,'' she said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one third world diplomat at the United Nations told IPS the U.S. pledge is ''too little, too late''.

''At a time when the U.S. is planning to increase its military budget by nearly 100 billion dollars annually, the American contribution to fight AIDS is peanuts,'' he said.

The activists are particularly concerned that money to fund the programme will be taken out of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a programme announced by Bush last May but not yet funded, to provide a 50 percent increase in U.S. development aid - or five billion dollars - to the world's poorest countries over the next three years. That programme is supposed to increase U.S. aid next year by some 1.6 billion dollars, but no details have yet been released.

''We have waited for real presidential leadership on this issue and at least we are starting to see it,'' said Paul Zeitz, director of the Global AIDS Alliance. But, like Booker, he expressed disappointment that the programme provides so little immediate funding and so little to the Global Fund, which, one year after beginning operation, is already running out of money due to high demand and disappointing contributions.

Added Lewis: ''There will inevitably be many questions. If the 10 billion dollars is new money, where will the old money be taken from? Since the money will presumably not start to flow until 2004, what kind of emergency supplemental allocation can be found for 2003?''

The Global Fund, to which Washington has contributed only 500 million dollars in the last two fiscal years, has estimated its needs at more than 10 billion dollars a year by 2005 and 15 billion dollars a year by 2007 if it is to fulfil its role as the main multilateral instrument for fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Activist groups like the Global AIDS Alliance have been arguing that the United States, which accounts for about one-third of the global economy, should provide at least one-third of the Fund's resources, or more than three billion dollars a year. In that respect, Bush's commitment of only one billion dollars over the five-year period marks a serious blow.

''It's outrageous that the president gives such short shrift to the Global Fund,'' Zeitz said. ''It is the best hope yet for the fight against AIDS; yet the president has let the Fund down.''

Bush has also not made clear yet whether the programme will encourage African countries to use generic drugs for treatment, contrary to the administration's position in recent trade negotiations, where they have defended the interests of major western pharmaceutical companies that oppose generics.

Activists say they were encouraged by Bush's reference to the sharp declines in the cost of antiretroviral drugs that sustain the lives of people with AIDS. ''Procurement of drugs at this rate is only possible from generic manufacturers,'' Zeitz said.

Finally, activists expressed disappointment that Bush failed to mention any new debt-relief initiatives, which they say could greatly enhance their ability to deal with the pandemic and rebuild health systems battered by years of World Bank and International Monetary Fund-induced austerity.

''Africa's illegitimate external debts are draining 15 billion dollars a year from the war on AIDS,'' said Booker. ''The spirit and logic of the president's own initiative demand the immediate cancellation of these debts.''

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