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.”
