Global Policy Forum

The public attention given in recent months to Africa's AIDS crisis has not been matched with money. Last year the world spent about $1 billion on AIDS in developing countries - a sum that will not even buy adequate prevention campaigns, much less health infrastructure, care for AIDS orphans and necessary medicines for the sick. But in a series of international meetings over the next few weeks, world leaders will be turning their attention to financing these urgent programs. The speech last week by Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations at the African AIDS conference in Nigeria lays out a solid basis for a global attack on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Mr. Annan called for a global fund to fight these diseases - with contributions from governments, foundations and wealthy individuals - that would eventually add $7 billion to $10 billion a year to the current level of world spending. He recommended that the money go to preventing the spread of disease, cutting mother-to-child transmission of AIDS, caring for orphans, aiding scientific breakthroughs and buying medicine, including anti-retroviral drugs to treat AIDS.

The idea of a global fund has been endorsed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the group of the world's seven largest industrialized nations. On June 25 the UN General Assembly holds a special session on AIDS, and may formally establish the fund then. Actual pledges are expected in July, at a meeting of the world's wealthiest nations in Genoa, Italy.

At least initially, a large part of the money will go toward building a health infrastructure in the African nations most ravaged by AIDS. African leaders from 43 nations have pledged to increase their spending on health, and especially on AIDS.

The statement is a welcome sign that African leaders are taking AIDS and health issues more seriously. The few countries that have demonstrated a commitment to slowing the spread of AIDS have been able to do so. But many nations are still ignoring AIDS and spending less than $10 per capita on health each year.

The global AIDS fund, which has gotten initial support from Italy, Britain, Canada and Sweden, is likely to be handicapped by a lack of leadership from the United States. While Bush administration officials speak about AIDS as a catastrophe, the president's 2002 budget adds less than 10 percent to this year's spending for AIDS overseas, raising it to $480 million. Former President Clinton suggested to the Nigeria AIDS conference that Washington should provide a quarter of the global AIDS fund. President Bush's budget falls more than $1 billion short of that.

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