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 Donate the Dollars
Campaigning Success All across affected regions like Africa, additional resources can be immediately used to finance proven programs, while at the same time strengthening and expanding health facilities over time. In response to campaign pressure from activists and numerous concerned groups, the international community joined together in 2001 to create an innovative public-private partnership, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, proposed the Fund's creation. The Fund will balance its resources by giving due priority to areas with the greatest burden of disease, while strengthening efforts in areas with growing epidemics. It will provide grants to public, private, and nongovernmental programs in support of technically sound and cost-effective programs, for the prevention, treatment, care and support of the infected and directly affected. The Fund will also provide resources for the purchase of medications and other products to prevent and treat the three diseases. So far, rich governments and a few corporations have pledged $ 1.9 billion to the Global Fund. Campaigners have rallied together over 230 civic organizations in the US and around the world calling on the US government to donate its fair share to the Fund, and campaigners in the Great Britain and other countries are staging similar actions. During 2002, country programs will receive resources via the Fund. Stayed tuned for more information about these newly funded programs. To help get even more resources to where they're most needed visit our Take Action section. Treat the People
The benefits of these programs have included not only the extension of patient’s lives, including the parents of would-be orphans, but also more successful prevention campaigns. These programs have proven that the medicines can be administered effectively where the health care systems are weak. Campaigning Success But, despite these positive examples, so much more needs to be done to secure reliable access to medications. With drug prices being the main obstacle, activists have campaigned so that market competition from generic versions of these drugs could start bringing down the prices of the medications. And, recently, this campaign won a number of concessions. For instance, at last year's meeting of the World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar, African governments and others, backed by AIDS activists, successfully bargained for the right to allow local pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic versions of patented drugs for the local market in order to protect public health. This was a hard-won victory that required coordinated campaign pressure and media tactics. Now, negotiations are underway to determine whether some countries might also be permitted to import patented drugs made by generic producers in other countries. In this way, a country such as Uganda that does not have the capacity to manufacture its own AIDS medications might be permitted to purchase them from producers of cheaper, generic medicines in Brazil. This success at Doha was real, but it's all threatened by Fast Track legislation in the US – read more in our Take Action section! Drop the Debt
Uganda has also made progress, having been able to increase spending on primary healthcare by 270 percent as a result of debt relief. $1.3 million of Uganda's debt relief money has been specifically earmarked for their national HIV/AIDS plan. This amount will be matched by an additional $1.3 million of government revenue, and supported by $2.4 million of overseas development assistance. Cameroon has put its $114 million cut in debt service to good use. With an HIV rate that by the end of 1999 was approaching eight percent, Cameroon chose to spend part of that savings to fund several emergency actions in their comprehensive national strategic HIV/AIDS plan, including promoting behavior change, making voluntary testing and counseling widely available, preventing HIV transmission from pregnant women to their babies, and supporting a 100% condom use campaign. Campaigning Success Growing pressure from debt campaign groups, under the Jubilee 2000 umbrella, forced the creditors to admit that the debt relief initiative started in 1996 was failing to deliver. Countries hopelessly mired in old loans, many taken on by dictatorships, were still paying out many times in debt payments what they were able to spending on providing health care and education. Following intensifying campaign pressure, in January 1999, Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, announced that `radical and bold' steps were needed on debt relief, prompting other G7 creditors to support calls for an `enhanced' Initiative. This was launched at the Cologne G7 Summit, as 50,000 people formed human chains in Germany to call for the `chains of debt' to be broken. Campaigners also succeeded in pressuring a number of the wealthiest nations, like the US and Britain, to cancel all debts owed them by some of the most impoverished nations. With these successes the historic Jubilee campaign has leveraged $34 billion in debt cancellation for impoverished nations. Campaigners in the US achieved a hard-won victory when they persuaded the United States Congress to provide more than $700 million to fulfill the US commitment to international debt relief. Yet, we have not gone far enough. Only 25 of the poorest countries will see their debts reduced. The debt relief provided to date will reduce overall debt burdens by only one third on average. Many countries have yet to see the debt relief promised as they struggle to implement World Bank and IMF economic austerity measures in order to get the money. Read more in our Take Action section! |
