Thursday, July 10, 2003

Beware of Bush Bearing Gifts by Louise Richards 07 Jul 03 Bush's commitment to provide additional funds lays down the gauntlet to European Union, and not before time. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is in dire need of money. But should we be thankful for Bush's lead on this issue? It's a debatable point. Behind the headlines - and qualified support from international NGOs for the new funds - lies a different story. To start with, only $10 billion of Bush's pledged $15 billion is new. Second, as ActionAid has pointed out, there's no guarantee that this money will be spent over the next five years. The U.S. Congress has to sign off the funds each year, and recent history is littered with aid initiatives that slid into the sand. A recent joint report from U.S. think-tanks the Center for Global Development and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that as little as $45 million of Bush's money to fight AIDS will be spent in 2004. There is also the question of whether the funds will be tied aid - a hallmark of U.S. official development assistance. Revealingly, the USA has said it will deliver only one third of pledged dollars through the Global Fund, with the remaining money coming as bilateral aid. The Global Fund was set up specifically to be free of the conditionality associated with tied aid and it champions the purchase of the cheaper generic drug treatments central to fighting HIV/AIDS in the least-developed countries. The USA has in fact opened its taxpayers' chequebook to safeguard the patent rights of its powerful pharmaceutical lobby. The Bush plan states that 2 million sufferers of HIV/AIDS will be provided with drug treatments. This could be a bonanza for U.S. drug corporations whose AIDS drug sales in Africa account for just 0.2 per cent of turnover. If other U.S. aid programmes are anything to go by, contracts to supply treatments will be offered to US pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, which reportedly rakes in profits of more than $1 million an hour. Yet overseas manufacturers of generic treatments can massively undercut the price of Western drugs. [OneWorld.net] 8:09:23 AM  Google It!

African Heads of State Gather in Maputo for AU Summit by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton 10 Jul 03 MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE. African heads of state and government have a busy few days ahead of them, as they meet for the second summit of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, from 10-12 July. All week, the foreign ministerial Executive Council has been drawing up the agenda and recommendations that the African leaders will debate, endorse or reject during their 3-day summit. With some devastating crises afflicting the continent, their citizens look to them for the leadership to end Africa's armed conflicts and address problems like drought and famine, as well as speed up development, promote democracy and strengthen regional integration and trade. But there are already blots on the continental copybook. One of the top items on the summit agenda is the creation of the Peace and Security Council, the organ envisaged to help resolve wars in Africa, through direct intervention. Yet barely a dozen countries have ratified the protocol that will establish the Council, broadly based on the United Nations Security Council. Ratification by half of the AU's 53 member states is required to bring the Peace and Security Council into being. [allAfrica.com] 7:59:30 AM  Google It!