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| Campaigns | 'G-20 nations must fight AIDS' Funeral Procession and March |
| The US Global AIDS Plan | Click here for press coverage of the amazing action, and here to view Photos of the action. When the G-20 comes to Pittsburgh, many issues will be discussed. One important issue will not be on the table - global health. As millions of people go without HIV treatment...
WHY ARE G-20 NATIONS REFUSING TO KEEP THEIR PROMISES TO FIGHT AIDS? Funeral Procession and March: Tell the G-20 to Fight AIDS
Start at the plaza at Grant and Liberty in Downtown Pittsburgh, and march to the G-20 Summit location G-20 member nations made promises to fight AIDS around the world. But the financial crisis has given them an excuse to go back on those promises, putting millions of lives at risk worldwide. The G-20 nations must keep their promises to fight AIDS around the world. This event is permitted. Please wear black if you can. Sponsored by: ACT UP Philadelphia, Azania Heritage, Black Radical Congress of Pittsburgh, Health GAP, Housing Works, New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice, NYC AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Proyecto Sol Filadelphia, Roots of Promise, a project of the Thomas Merton Center, and others. To endorse the funeral procession: contact Kaytee at kaytee@healthgap.org or 267.334.6984. Free buses from NYC (depart 5am, African Services Committee - 429 W. 127th St, Contact: jflynn@healthgap.org or 917-517-5202) and Philadelphia (depart 6:30am from Broad and Walnut, Contact: actupp@critpath.org or 215-386-1981). Food/tokens will be provided. Click on an option to the right to download a flier | B&W | Color | Word Doc Read the press release here: AIDS activists hold funeral for thousands who will die because of G-20 Nation's broken promises Why we're marching:
The G-20 and Global AIDS:
Background: Since 2001, activists have been successful in pushing wealthy nations to wake up to the global AIDS crisis. Combined, donor nations tripled their health-related development aid, from $7.2 billion in 2001 to $22.1 billion in 2007. Before this dramatic increase in funding, less than .1% of people living with HIV who needed treatment could access it. Now, more than 30% of people in need have access, and life expectancy is increasing. But this progress is threatened by the global financial crisis, and the failure of wealthy nations to come through on commitments to fight global AIDS. Reports from developing countries relying heavily on western contributions to HIV treatment programs show that access to HIV medicine is faltering.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) is a multilateral mechanism for funding treatment and prevention programs, and has distributed funds in over 140 countries since its inception in 2003. In April 2007, wealthy nations represented on the Board of the GFATM agreed to triple the size of the Fund from $2-3 billion per year to $6-8 billion per year as long as poor countries submitted bigger and higher quality grant applications. Poor nations submitted grants that were three times the size of the previous round of grants. But wealthy nations did not follow through on their end of the promise, and the Global Fund is facing a $5 billion shortfall. This funding gap has forced the GFATM to cut existing and future grants, eliminate new rounds of funding, and postpone planned scale up of the most effective grants. In spite of activists’ effort to get wealthy nations to increase contributions to the Fund, the countries have used the financial crisis as an excuse to limit funding. $9 trillion from the U.S. alone has been mobilized to bail out banks, and the GFATM funding shortfall is only $5 billion. Clearly, if wealthy nations were committed to the promises made to people with HIV, TB and malaria at the April 2007 Board meeting, then the shortfall would long ago have been filled. Instead, millions of people who rely on the GFATM for HIV, TB and malaria prevention, treatment and care are put at increased risk of disease, disability, and in many cases, death. Bilateral AIDS Programs: In addition to multilateral programs, bilateral programs are also suffering under the global financial crisis. This is the result of two concurrent issues. First, funding for programs like the U.S.’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have not increased to meet demand. While the programs should be expanded to include new prevention efforts, an emphasis on the training and retention of health workers, and earlier initiation of AIDS treatment to meet international medical standards, funding simply is not available to scale up programs. The result is that people receive lower quality care than in wealthy nations, and efforts to fight AIDS are not sustainable in the long term. Second, wealthy nations have indicated a desire to redirect funding from AIDS programs to other pressing global health concerns, including maternal and child health and neglected tropical diseases, or to broadly defined “health systems strengthening”. The solution to the health challenges faced by the world’s poor is not to “rob Peter to pay Paul”, but to increase overall funding of programs aimed at all diseases. Pitting funding for diseases against each other does not serve the interests of anyone, and will only lead to more unnecessary death. Fact sheet updated 9/2/09 |
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