Bush Promised AIDS Funding "Too Little, Too Late"

by Jim Lobe

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

Of the total, only $2 billion is to be appropriated for fiscal 2004, which begins next Oct. 1, according to the White House and only $1 billion will go to the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

"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 program, 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 new round of tax cuts and for war against Iraq.

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 3 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 7 million new AIDS infections, treat at least 2 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 to be spent, Bush said, $10 billion 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 president, Robert Mugabe. In the Caribbean, Guyana and Haiti will be targeted.

The fact sheet said that the 7 million new infections that will be prevented represent 60 percent of the projected 12 million new infections in the target countries. The program will provide care for 10 million HIV infected individuals and AIDS orphans, it added.

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

Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the program 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 2 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 programs to fund the new one. "We cannot afford to rob Peter to pay Paul," she said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one 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 annually, the American contribution to fight AIDS is peanuts," he said.

The activists are particularly concerned that money to fund the program will be taken out of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a program announced by Bush last May but not yet funded, to provide a 50 percent increase in U.S. development aid -- or $5 billion -- to the world's poorest countries over the next three years. That program is supposed to increase U.S. aid next year by some $1.6 billion, 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 program 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 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 $500 million in the last two fiscal years, has estimated its needs at more than $10 billion a year by 2005 and $15 billion 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 $3 billion a year. In that respect, Bush's commitment of $1 billion 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 program 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 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."