Every day this week, we’ll be highlighting a personal story from our new AIDS report, “Progress. Proof. Promise.” In this essay, former President George W. Bush discusses the impact that PEPFAR has had on the fight against AIDS.
In 2001, an AIDS pandemic threatened to destroy a generation of Africans. In country after country, people were needlessly dying even though new life-saving antiretroviral drugs were available at a reasonable cost. The humanitarian disaster called for dramatic action.
I can remember where I was when PEPFAR was announced (I know, I know, it takes a certain sort of person to can geek out over legislative policy). But sitting down to dinner in my humble seminary apartment in Chicago that night inspired me and filled me with hope, because PEPFAR is one of the best of American efforts to take on global challenges like HIV/AIDS.
Since 2002, we’ve seen the number of Africans on life-saving HIV/AIDS medicines go from 50,000 to more than 4 million. People who are living with HIV are getting back to school and work. This is what happens when smart policy, moral suasion and a focus for real results takes place.
I wanted to share Mike Gerson’s new op-ed in Christianity Today not simply because he looks back at the success stories accomplished in US policy like PEPFAR, but also his imperative to keep up the efforts in fighting global challenges like AIDS. Mike Gerson would know. He was there on the ground floor as PEPFAR was turned from dream to reality.
On Wednesday, I went to a Congressional hearing titled “PEPFAR: From Emergency to Sustainability and Advances Against HIV/AIDS.” It was held by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Rayburn House Office Building. Several members of Congress (including Rep. Berman, Rep. Smith, Rep. Watson, Rep. Lee, and Rep. Woolsey ) came to discuss the challenges and successes of PEPFAR so far and how to make it more effective in the future.
The President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) launched in 2003 by President Bush and is the largest effort by any nation to combat a single disease and provides life-saving care to millions of people every year.
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates in New Hampshire, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Florida stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
Last night, New Hampshire Senate candidate Bill Binnie held an event at the baseball stadium here in Manchester, N.H. I went with some ONE members to talk to him about ONE and let him know more about our efforts to encourage continued bold US leadership in the fight against AIDS, malaria and hunger in Africa.
As soon as we got to the stadium we were greeted by our New Hampshire ONE Vote Republican Chair, John Lyons, who kindly took a quick photo with us for the ONE blog.
I also saw many former political staffers who got to know ONE during our ONE Vote effort in 2008. People from Mike Huckabee’s campaign, John McCain’s campaign and others all remembered and complimented ONE’s bipartisan efforts to celebrate recent US efforts to fight AIDS and poverty — like the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria Act that passed the Senate in 2008 — with support from Democrats like Sens. Biden and Kerry and Republicans like Sununu and Coburn.
Known to many ONE members as PEPFAR, the plan that President Bush originally announced in 2002 has helped prevent the spread of HIV, putting more than 5 million people on 40-cent pills to fight AIDS. This is something that all ONE members and all Americans should take great pride in!
Americans from everywhere are coming together and uniting with ONE to support urgent, life-saving action and stand tall with proud Africans who struggle each day to overcome extreme poverty and beat back corruption. Good people from both sides of the political aisle and both sides of the oceans have stood tall in the past few years to help save lives and build a better and more prosperous world for all.
Today, with ONE Vote 2010, we celebrate those great efforts and aim to make sure that our leaders continue to enact better policy for the world’s poorest people in the future!
Be sure to connect with other ONE Vote 2010 New Hampshire members on Facebook and Twitter.
MTV doesn’t need to create The Real World: Lusaka or Tanzania Shore to effectively reach African audiences. Instead the network known for its reality TV shows has found a hit in the recent docu-drama Shuga.
Set in Nairobi, Kenya, MTV’s three-part miniseries tells the story of six college friends chasing after sex, money, and love. The story focuses on Ayira – a girl who can’t choose between her soul mate and a wealthy older man. But the drama is more than a narrative of the hopes and fears of its cast – it is a poignant commentary on the effects of a dangerous lifestyle in a society plagued by the threat of HIV and AIDS.
MTV’s Georgia Arnold calls the show’s underlying educational messages about HIV “almost subliminal,” but partners UNICEF and PEPFAR (the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) confirm the well-concealed communication. The partners hoped Ayira’s story would educate African youth about the need to be tested for HIV, the effects of having multiple sexual partners and the importance of openly talking about HIV in order to combat the stigma associated with the virus.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore say the messaging worked. Results of the researchers’ survey found that 60 percent of Kenyan youths identified the main lessons of the show. Nearly half of the interviewed groups reported talking about the show’s characters and its messaging with family and friends. An estimated 90 percent of Kenyan viewers and 60 percent of Zambian viewers reported the show impacted their thinking.
Although researchers cannot measure the number of actions prevented after viewing Shuga, UNICEF and PEPFAR agree people are already overcoming one of the biggest obstacles – talking openly about HIV. The more they talk, the more likely they are to practice safe sex.
Talk of Shuga grew so much in fact, that the partnering organizations barely needed to promote the series. African youth themselves used social networks to publicize the show.
Considering Shuga’s success, MTV, UNICEF and PEPFAR are already planning a sequel.
CNN.com just posted this excellent piece looking at funding threats to successful AIDS treatment programs in Uganda. Highly recommended.
Key excerpt and corresponding video clip below:
The U.N. says by 2008, about 141,000 Ugandans were receiving antiretroviral therapy. But Mugyenyi can recall a time when less than 10,000 of Uganda’s HIV/AIDS sufferers were able to receive life-saving treatment.
“I once did a round, [when I had to] literally go around bodies of people lying in corridors to get to those on the bed,” said Mugyenyi. “But that situation has been changed by PEPFAR.”
But at one of the research center’s outreach facilities — Hope Clinic — they’re worried about funding.
In an internal memo dating from October 2009, obtained by CNN, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Ugandan clinics like Hope they should “expect to have a set flat-lined budget for antiviral drug procurement.”
Health workers at Hope Clinic say that means changes for clinics that in recent years have given free treatment to every patient who walked through the door.
Patients already enrolled in antiviral treatment continue to get their drugs, but now new patients go on a waiting list. A treatment slot opens when a patient dies. Mugyenyi said they turn away up to 20 patients every day.
“As people who saw the devastation of the past, we fear we may have a setback,” he told CNN. “The achievements we have made over the years with PEPFAR — we might begin to see a reversal of the benefits we have seen.”
Last week I blogged about a big announcement from the State Department outlining a new $30 million commitment to combating gender-based violence through PEPFAR. Over at State’s DipNote blog, US Global AIDS Ambassador Eric Goosby has a bit more background on the need to address gender-based violence and how this funding will do that.
He explains:
As a key component of President Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI), which explicitly embraces a woman- and girl-centered approach to health issues, PEPFAR is working to reaffirm and expand its focus on women and girls in the context of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. This $30 million initiative is one way that we are doing so.
PEPFAR’s increased GBV response will build upon the existing PEPFAR platforms in these three countries, working to increase the reach, coordination, and efficacy of GBV programs. Our hope is that this initiative will move us closer to our goal of sustainable GBV responses by moving small, pilot projects to tailored, coordinated and integrated national responses.
To ensure this, we will strengthen our current partnerships with governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society in Mozambique, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as other countries in which we work. We will also support comprehensive GBV response packages for victims of violence at health facilities, increase GBV prevention programs to address the underlying causes of violence, and improve linkages with other sectors and addressing policy and address structural barriers. PEPFAR will partner with countries and build synergies both across U.S. Government agencies and other partners that focus on GBV-related development issues, such as education, reproductive health, democracy and governance, and economic growth. As we move to expand the reach of programs to fight gender-based violence, we will strengthen our monitoring and evaluation efforts to ensure that interventions implemented are effective and contribute to the broader global effort.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
I also saw many former political staffers who got to know ONE during our ONE Vote effort in 2008. People from 
