Global AIDS Fund

What role should the U.S. play in combating HIV/AIDS internationally?

In partnership with African nations, the U.S. and other wealthy nations have the opportunity to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS by supporting both treatment and successful, scientifically proven prevention programs. Signals from Washington are mixed, however.

In 2003 President Bush called for an increase in funding for HIV/AIDS overseas, culminating in the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003. The new funding, slated for both treatment and prevention efforts, is welcome and long over-due. However, the commitment of $15 billion over 5 years starts slowly, with only $2 billion requested by the Bush administration in the first year. And funding for prevention (estimated at about 20% of the total) is bound up with right-wing ideology — in the House version of the bill, fully 1/3 of prevention funds are directed to ineffective programs that exclude condoms and focus solely on abstinence-only messages.

The new bill also authorizes up to $1 billion each year for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, provided that the U.S. contribute no more than 33% of the total amount given to the fund.

For more information:

• Planned Parenthood’s report on the effect of right-wing ideology on U.S. reproductive and sexual health policy

• Guttmacher Report on U.S. AIDS Policy

  In This Section:

NAPPA: Our Partner

Snapshot of Namibia

Sexual Health in Namibia

Letters from Namibia

Namibian Scrap Book

US Policy & Global Health

AIDS in Africa

Global AIDS Fund

Inter. Family Planning

UNFPA

Global Gag Rule