Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - May 7, 2003
Michael M. Phillips, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The impending shortfall is likely to put pressure on Europe and Japan to keep pace with growing American contributions to the fund. But AIDS activists also see it as an implicit criticism of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, the fund's chairman and chief global fund-raiser.
"Pledges made for this year are insufficient to cover more than a small number of additional grants," the General Accounting Office said in a report to be released Wednesday. In addition, the GAO said, "without significant new pledges" the fund won't even be able to finance the completion of developing-world health projects that it's just now launching.
The warning comes as Congress considers substantially larger annual contributions to the fund and is trying to use that prospect to pry further aid out of U.S. allies. The Bush administration has pledged $1.65 billion of the $3.4 billion promised overall to the fund through 2008, and the House last week voted to authorize as much as $1 billion a year more for the fund, assuming that other donors collectively match the U.S. money two-to-one.
The provision, part of a five-year, $15 billion measure that shadows President Bush's AIDS initiative, must win Senate approval, and congressional appropriators would have to vote to allocate any actual spending. One estimate circulating on Capitol Hill is that the fund will get $350 million from the U.S. for fiscal 2004, which begins on Oct. 1.
The fund, created as an independent international body in January 2002, won plaudits from the GAO for improving the way it allocates and monitors its grants. It has committed financing for 160 projects in 92 countries, and estimates it will need $1.4 billion more this year.
AIDS activists contend that Mr. Thompson hasn't been aggressive enough in raising money from U.S. allies. "The U.S. administration could be leveraging its influence with the Europeans," said Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance advocacy group. "We don't see that happening."
Mr. Thompson plans to visit Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm and Geneva in coming weeks to discuss the fund's financing needs. And wealthy nations may use next month's Group of Eight summit in Evian, France, or July's donor meeting in Paris as opportunities to boost their pledges.
Mr. Thompson's spokesman, Bill Pierce, said the secretary is just beginning his fund-raising efforts. "He's going to take this on directly," Mr. Pierce said.
But Mr. Thompson may have a hard time convincing potential donor governments, some of whom feel they're more generous than Washington when it comes to overall foreign aid. While France is expected to increase its pledge to the fund, Germany, Japan and Britain appear to be balking at major boosts.
Fund officials try to stay out of the political fray, but believe the funding gap is urgent. "We can't afford to squabble when there are six million people a year dying from the three diseases we're working on," said Executive Director Richard Feachem, who declined to comment on the GAO report itself.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
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