Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - June 1, 2001
The United Nations special session on AIDS cleared a hurdle when negotiators agreed on the language of the closing resolution, the document that will provide the guiding principles for the worldwide effort to fight AIDS. Some Muslim nations had objected to references to "men having sex with men" and "prostitutes" in the resolution. Inserted in their place were men at risk due to "sexual practices" and women vulnerable to HIV and AIDS due to "livelihood."
But the real news wasn't about semantics. It was about money.
In Washington, leaders of the House International Relations Committee struck a tentative agreement to provide $1.3 billion in funding to fight AIDS globally.
Previously, the U.S. had pledged just $200 million to a worldwide AIDS fund that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan estimated would need $7 billion to $10 billion annually to be effective.
The initial U.S. pledge brought criticism from health activists and was far short of the $2 billion Annan and other U.N. officials hoped the U.S. would contribute.
Yesterday's agreement, reached by committee chairman Henry Hyde and local Democrat Tom Lantos, provided welcome news as the historic three-day session was set to draw to a close. Many questions still persist, however.
Even if fully funded, the global AIDS fund seems destined for a political war over how the money will be spent. The pharmaceutical industry is angling for a strong oversight role and lobbying against efforts to ease patent protections and open up world markets to cheap, generic versions of the expensive antiretroviral drugs.
And many nations would rather see funding directed toward more politically palatable prevention efforts, rather than treatment for those who have AIDS.
A major side issue involves the crippling debt borne by many Third World countries, especially those in Africa, owed to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Activists are calling for those institutions and the developed world to cancel the debt so that the nations hit hardest by AIDS will have more money to build health infrastructures.
Poverty-stricken African nations face a staggering toll from the disease.
More than 25 million of the 36 million worldwide with AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Of the $1.3 billion agreed to by Hyde and Lantos, $750 million would go directly to the AIDS fund, bringing U.S. donations to $950 million. Now the funding agreement must wend its way through both houses of Congress and be signed by President Bush. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. special session on Monday that the United States was committed to playing a leadership role in fighting AIDS globally. Bush may have a chance to live up to that promise.
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