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July 27, 2016 The Skanner Page 9 News By Linda Villarosa (BAI Daily Contributor) T hroughout AIDS 2016, whispers that global funds to ight HIV/AIDS have begun to dry up have turned to shouts. In the crowded hallways of the International Convention Center, on panels, plenaries and even t-shirts, everybody seems to be worried that The Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria won’t be ful- ly funded and interna- tional dollars are fading away. In fact, organiz- ers of Monday’s march through Durban said “ funding to support HIV eforts in low- and mid- dle-income countries fell for the irst time in ive years in 2015, ac- cording to data gathered and analyzed jointly by the Kaiser Family Foun- dation and UNAIDS. In U.S. currency, over $1 bil- lion dried up; AIDS mon- ey dropped from $8.6 billion in 2014 to $7.5 bil- lion in 2015, a 13 percent decline. Money matters. With the goal of ending AIDS by 2030, the movement has reached a critical moment. As death rates have plummeted, more and more people require life-saving treatment. to treatment, compared to 17 million currently. UNAIDS estimates that to reach its “fast track” goals and end AIDS in the next 14 years re- quires an increase of at least $7.2 billion by 2020. “Our progress is incred- ibly fragile,” said Michel Sidibe, executive direc- tor of UNAIDS. “If we do not act now, we risk resurgence and resis- tance.” The United States con- tributes the lion’s share to global funding—66 percent—and American dollars decreased from $5.6 billion in 2014 to $5 billion in 2015. The vast majority of our money We can’t be silent in the face of hypocrisy and broken promises they created their event to bring attention to the “massive disconnect” between the promises to end HIV/AIDS by 2030 and the lack of funding to actually make it happen. But is this a Chicken Little tactic to create the appearance of need? Or is it real? According to a new report, yes, it’s real. Donor government In essence, the epidem- ic has become a “vic- tim” of its own success. In 2000 when the AIDS conference was irst held in Durban, 1.5 mil- lion people died from AIDS around the world; that number dropped to about 1 million in 2015. Sixteen years ago, 770,000 people living with the virus had access funds speciic projects and programs, with an additional 14 percent giv- en to The Global Fund. (Overall contributions to the Global Fund dropped by $305 million.) The U.K. follows the U.S. in donations, supplying 13 percent of AIDS money. With a nod to the disrup- tion occurring in that country, one conference attendee carried a sign that read England—Don’t “Brexit” the AIDS Re- sponse. Funding for HIV de- clined for 13 of 14 donor governments assessed in the analysis, in part because of a technical reason: The U.S. dollar became stronger, result- ing in the depreciation of most other donor cur- rencies. Even some of the drop in funding from the U.S. itself can be ex- plained away on paper. The U.S. pushed some of its dollars into the 2016 spread sheet to pay for the new DREAMS proj- ect aimed at attacking HIV infections among girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa and to expand male cir- cumcision services in many of the same coun- tries. Still, in the words of Jen Kates, one of the authors of the report, “it’s a real decline.” In our increasingly complicated and unsta- ble world, a tangle of rea- sons explain the funding drop of. “We know that governments are facing iscal austerity mea- sures,” explained Kates, COURTESY KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION Show Me the Money: Global HIV Funding on the Decline International HIV assistance from donor governments in $U.S. billions a Kaiser Family Founda- tion vice president. “We also know that they are faced with competing demands, including ref- ugee and humanitarian emergencies that are af- fecting their budgets.” No matter the explana- tions, activists are wor- ried—and angry. “We can’t be silent in the face of hypocrisy and bro- ken promises,” said Nk- hensani Mavasa, chair of South Africa’s Treat- ment Action Campaign, during the AIDS 2016 opening ceremony. “Gov- ernments are refusing to deliver funding increas- es and this is unaccept- able.” More bluntly, she add- ed: “When your house is burning and your family is inside, you don’t beg quietly but you shout and you scream. Our house is still burning.”