{"id":58,"date":"2005-12-01T19:38:52","date_gmt":"2005-12-02T00:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/2005\/12\/01\/world-aids-day-2005\/"},"modified":"2005-12-01T19:38:52","modified_gmt":"2005-12-02T00:38:52","slug":"world-aids-day-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/2005\/12\/01\/world-aids-day-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"World AIDS Day 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\nYesterday was World AIDS day and President Bush touted<\/a> some of the
\nearly results of his $15bn, 5-year plan to combat AIDS in the
\ndeveloping world, known as PEPFAR (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). That plan has put nearly 400,000 HIV+
\npositive people on antiretroviral therapy. The Bush Administration is
\nspending $2.8bn on global AIDS prevention and treatment this year
\nand has budgeted at $3.2bn for 2006 (interestingly enough, the U.S.
\nspends $17bn a year on domestic prevention and treatment efforts). Does
\nthe Bush Administration deserve much credit for its global efforts? Is
\nthe U.S. doing enough?<\/p>\n

While
\nthe U.S. is not doing enough, it may be doing more than others. I did a
\ntalk yesterday for Princeton’s Student Global AIDS Campaign on
\ninternational donor responses to HIV\/AIDS. It was a great opportunity
\nfor me to get engaged on the issue as I gear up to write more about the
\ntopic. I’ve been reviewing some of the data on donor responses to
\nHIV\/AIDS. What’s pretty clear from recent studies is that there is a
\nbig financing gap looming that may make it difficult to achieve goals
\nfor prevention and for near universal access to treatment for AIDS
\nsufferers by 2010. The recent UNAIDS report<\/a>
\non financing needs suggests that in 2006 there is likely to be a
\nshortfall of $6bn of the total $14.9bn needed to ramp up global AIDS
\nprograms. That funding gap is project to grow to $8.1bn in 2007 (out of
\n$18.1bn needed). <\/p>\n

Whatever you think about the Bush
\nAdministration, by most measures, the Bush Administration has
\ncontributed far more to HIV\/AIDS prevention and treatment than other
\ngovernments and previous administrations. A Kaiser Family Foundation
\nstudy<\/a>
\nby Jennifer Kates found that the U.S. in 2004 contributed about 37.8%
\nof total government efforts to combat AIDS when you include bilateral
\nfunding to governments and NGOs as well as contributions to the Global
\nFund. Has the U.S. been doing its fair share? One measure of fair share
\nis for countries to contribute in line with their percentage of global
\nGDP. In 2004, the U.S. share<\/a> was 28.69%. 2004 was not an anomaly. Between 2001 and 2005, UNAIDS estimates<\/a>
\nthat
\nthe U.S. contributed 30.36% of total contributions to the Global
\nFund which understates total U.S. contributions since much of its AIDS
\nassistance is channeled bilaterally. While all of the donors have
\nfailed AIDS sufferers, the U.S. appears to be doing rather more than
\nothers. Her paper finds that the UK and Canada both appear to be
\ncontributing more than their share of rich country income while France,
\nGermany and Japan appeared to be lagging. It is pretty obvious Bush has
\nbeen able to secure far more funding for HIV\/AIDS than President
\nClinton ever could. Kates has another study<\/a>
\nthat shows U.S. contributions, unadjusted for inflation, for HIV\/AIDS
\ndating back to the 1980’s. The peak for Clinton’s spending on global
\naids was $360mn in 2000, and Bush’s spending in 2002 was $1.49bn even
\nbefore he announced the large emergency plan for HIV\/AIDS. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whether or not these funds actually are being spent wisely and having
\nthe desired results remains to be seen. The Bush Administration has had
\nsomething of an ambivalent relationship with the Global Fund. While
\nU.S. officials have been actively engaged in creating and supporting
\nthe Global Fund, the President has directed the bulk of his plan to
\nbilateral efforts. Congress is more willing to support the Global Fund,
\nand may even increase the President’s proposal to contribute $300mn in
\n2006 up to $600mn. In theory, PEPFAR and the Global Fund are supposed
\nto be complementary, but the degree of coordination on the ground may
\nbe less than is desirable. I’ll elaborate on this in dynamic in future
\nposts, but a November 2005 Congressional Research Service report <\/a>is suggestive:<\/p>\n

Despite the emphasis on partnership, complementarity, and cooperation in
\npublic statements, some suspect that U.S. officials are not entirely happy with the
\nGlobal Fund, and may see it as a rival that is drawing attention away from the
\naccomplishments of U.S. bilateral programs.   Some trace the suspected estrangement
\nto April 2002, when the Global Fund board chose Dr. Richard Feachem, a Briton, as
\nExecutive Director, rather than an American candidate proposed by the United
\nStates.  Others argue that the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq brought out sentiments
\nin the Administration that were unfriendly toward the United Nations and multilateral
\norganizations generally, and that this affected attitudes toward the Global Fund.
\nThe tendency of the Administration to request less for the Global Fund than Congress
\nwas willing to provide may be traced to these anti-multilateral points of view, some
\nbelieve.   At a September 2004 congressional staff briefing on the Global Fund,
\nofficials were reportedly highly critical of Fund operations, causing observers to
\ndoubt Administration statements of support.  However, even many of those who
\nhave been skeptical of the degree of partnership between the Global Fund and
\nPEPFAR now acknowledge that there seems to be a new spirit of cooperation, as
\nsymbolized in the Administration’s $300 million request for the  Fund in FY2006.
\nThis new spirit has come late in the day, some argue, but is welcome nonetheless. \n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was World AIDS day and President Bush touted some of the early results of his $15bn, 5-year plan to combat AIDS in the developing world, known as PEPFAR (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). That plan has put nearly 400,000 HIV+ positive people on antiretroviral therapy. The Bush Administration is spending $2.8bn on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-policy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/politicshiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}