Hillary Clinton proposes integrated global HIV/AIDS and development plans

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=4437

11/29/2007

Clinton Builds On HIV/AIDS Plan With Global Development Agenda

Would Set Goal To End All Malaria Deaths In Africa

Just days after announcing a comprehensive strategy to fight HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and abroad, the Clinton campaign unveiled an aggressive agenda to combat other infectious diseases and poverty in developing nations. Hillary Clinton will discuss her proposals at the Third Annual Global Summit on AIDS and the church hosted by Pastor Rick and Kay Warren at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.

The plan includes at least $50 billion to provide universal access to treatment, prevention, and care for global HIV/AIDS by 2013. The plan also includes a $1 billion per year commitment to address malaria infection in Africa, with the goal of stamping out malaria deaths in Africa altogether by the end of her second term.

Groups working to fight malaria lauded the plan and Clinton’s leadership on the issue. "The Roll Back Malaria Partnership applauds Hillary Clinton’s bold commitment to fight malaria," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Minister of Health of Ethiopia and Chair of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership Board.

The Clinton plan also includes investments in providing the world’s children with free, basic education, expanding opportunities for women, and eliminating the debt of the world’s poorest countries.

HILLARY CLINTON’S PLAN TO COMBAT DISEASE AND POVERTY AROUND THE WORLD

Today, Hillary Clinton unveiled her strategy to fight disease and raise hope, opportunity and human dignity around the world. Her plan will reduce poverty, improve health outcomes, increase educational opportunity, expand economic development, and improve political and economic stability around the world.

America has a long and proud history of fighting poverty and encouraging economic development around the world. But that commitment has lagged relative to our own wealth, and in comparison with other prosperous nations. We need again to reclaim this great tradition, which is a testament to the kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the American people. America has long represented the ideal of opportunity. We must once again reclaim our leadership in promoting opportunity around the world. We do this first and foremost because it is right. And we do it also because it is smart. Gnawing hunger, poverty, and the absence of economic prospects are a recipe for despair. Globalization is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots within societies and between them. Today, there are more than two billion people living on less than $2 a day.

As First Lady and Senator, Hillary Clinton has a long record of advocacy for increased development assistance. She has sought to increase funding for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria programs, raised awareness about the transformative power of microcredit programs, fought to expand education to all children, worked to improve access to essential health services, and has lead efforts to expand recognition of human rights as women’s rights, and women’s rights as human rights. As President, she will continue her leadership, with a focus on:

• Investing $50 Billion for Global HIV/AIDS by 2013 to Ensure Universal Access to Treatment, Prevention and Care
• Committing to the Bold Goal of Ending all Deaths from Malaria in Africa
• Ensuring US Leadership in Achieving Free Basic Education for All
• Expanding Women’s Opportunity as a Tool for Development
• Improving Health and Opportunity for the World's Children
• Eliminating the Debts of the World’s Poorest Countries
• Maximizing the Impact of Increased Development Assistance

DETAILS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S PLAN TO COMBAT DISEASE AND POVERTY AROUND THE WORLD

1. $50 Billion for HIV/AIDS to Ensure Universal Access to Treatment, Prevention and Care: Hillary Clinton will commit $50 billion for global HIV/AIDS by 2013, which will help ensure universal access to treatment, prevention and care. Hillary will double the number of people receiving AIDS treatments through U.S. programs and strengthen prevention programs across Africa and the developing world. She will invest in a major effort to help African countries build their health infrastructures, including by increasing the number of health workers in place or in training in Africa by 1 million. She will also increase the U.S. commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and strengthen bilateral efforts to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of tuberculosis globally. She will also work to strengthen partnerships with faith-based groups and other non-governmental organizations that have been a critical in helping to address HIV around the world. The details of Hillary’s plan to fight global AIDS are at: www.hillaryclinton.com.
2. Bold Goal of Ending all Deaths From Malaria in Africa: Hillary believes we need a full frontal assault on malaria, which needlessly kills more than 1 million people each year and eats up 40% of public health expenditure in many African countries. Combating malaria is also critical to truly strengthening health infrastructures and effectively combating AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases. To that end, Hillary has set a bold goal of ending all deaths from malaria on the African continent by the end of her second term. Malaria kills more African children than any other disease—more than AIDS and tuberculosis combined. An African child dies from a mosquito bite every 30 seconds. And malaria exacts a devastating economic toll, lowering economic growth by 1.3% in countries with high transmission rates. As President, Hillary will commit $1 billion per year as a major down payment to end malarial deaths in Africa. This investment, alongside U.S. commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, will help spur global action to achieve universal access to treatment and preventative measures by the end of 2012. With universal access to a set of low-cost interventions—including treatment with effective medicines, free long-lasting insecticide treated bed-nets, and indoor residual spraying where appropriate—this initiative will dramatically reduce transmission and, by the end of Hillary’s second term, stamp out deaths due to malaria altogether. Similar approaches in countries like Kenya and Tanzania have already produced striking results, and faith-based groups and other non-profits are helping in countries across Africa to combat malaria at the community level. Senator Clinton’s malaria effort will put us on a path to achieve the long-term goal of completely eradicating malaria from the planet. Hillary will direct the NIH to work with leading research and non-profit institutions to move toward that goal. She would also encourage use of research prizes and advanced market commitments to spur innovation to address other neglected diseases that cause needless death and suffering in poor countries.
3. US Leadership in Achieving a Free Basic Education for All: Hillary was the original Senate sponsor in 2004 of the Education for All Act, which she helped reintroduce in 2007 as bipartisan legislation with original House sponsor Congresswoman Nita Lowey as well as Republican Senator Gordon Smith and Congressman Spencer Baucus. The bill calls for the US to take a leadership role in helping all children complete a free, quality basic education, in part by expanding funding to $3 billion annually by 2012. Education, particularly for girls in poor nations from Africa to South Asia to Latin America has been shown to be one of the highest returning investments any nation can make in its people—especially when we open doors to secondary as well as primary education. Education increases incomes, reduces poverty, strengthens communities, prevents the spread of HIV/AIDS, improves child and maternal health and helps empower women and girls. A strong American leadership role can help win hearts and minds and point more young people to peaceful and constructive futures. Hillary is adamant about the elimination of formal and informal school fees, the need for school feeding and health initiatives, and the importance of ensuring that educational access, quality and accountability go hand in hand. Through the Education Fast Track Initiative, she believes we can work cooperatively to ensure predictable and adequate funding, so that we can hire the teachers and commit to an expansion of quality education without overcrowding. Hillary further recognizes that if we are serious about “education for all,” we must have a strategy to reach the children that too often fall through the cracks. That is why she supports Senator Tom Harkin’s effort to work with the ILO to get children out of dangerous child labor and into school, and also recognizes the need for special strategies to provide education for orphans, children who are victims of trafficking, those with disabilities, and the tens of millions of young people who are internally displaced, refugees or in countries emerging from conflict.
4. Expanding Women’s Opportunity as a Tool for Development: In 1995, Hillary Clinton traveled to Beijing to represent the U.S. at the United Nations Conference on Women, and delivered the message that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights. While the world has made great progress in the years since, we are still far from achieving that vision. Failure to involve women fully in the economic, political, and social sectors around the world needlessly limits our potential for progress. Greater economic diversity cannot be achieved if half the population cannot participate in business, inherit property, or attain skills needed to seek employment. And science, research and innovation will stagnate unless we ensure that women have access to education. Women make up the majority of the poor in the world, and are often underpaid for their labor in nontraditional workplaces. As President, Hillary Clinton will expand access to women's economic development opportunities, and seek to bring microcredit programs into the global marketplace. More than 500,000 women die annually in childbirth, and for each of one those women, another 20 experience serious complications from pregnancy. Hillary will expand access to health care and nutrition for all women, reduce the burden of maternal mortality, and improving their access to essential reproductive health and family planning services. Women produce about half of the world's food, but own only about 1% of the land upon which it is grown. Hillary will work to ensure that women have equal protection under the law, and are not denied property or inheritance rights that lock them into poverty. She will also work to improve enforcement of anti-trafficking and anti-violence laws that protect women’s health and well-being around the world – laws that have been enacted and carried out in part through the advocacy of modern-day abolitionists, including many faith based groups.
5. Improving Health and Opportunity for the World's Children: Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has fought to help children, and as President, she will ensure that children’s needs are addressed in her poverty reduction strategy. Simple investments in nutrition, vaccination, and public health can save the lives of millions of children annually. Spending less than 10 cents annually on Vitamin A supplements could save more than 500,000 children. Spending less than a dollar on measles vaccinations could save another half a million. Hillary believes that the U.S. can be a leader in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths of children under 5 by two-thirds. As President, Hillary Clinton will work to extend access to lifesaving healthcare and treatments for children, and work to ensure that pediatric health services are integrated with other essential care and support services. She is also committed to improving access of children to nutritious food and clean water. Poverty, disease, and conflict have increased instability for far too many of the world’s children. More 200 million worldwide have been orphaned, and another 20 million are estimated to have been forced to leave their homes due to situations of conflict. These children are vulnerable to traffickers, militias, and others who would exploit them. Hillary will work to improve enforcement of anti-trafficking regulations, and create safe spaces for displaced children in schools.
6. Eliminating the Debts of the World’s Poorest Countries: The international community’s commitment to debt relief is working to reduce poverty and increase economic opportunity in many of the world’s poorest countries. Led by the Jubilee movement and President Clinton’s historic commitment in 2000 to provide enhanced debt relief to the poorest nations, the major donor nations have forgiven more than $70 billion in poor country debts. These resources are being invested in improving health and education outcomes for poor countries, and are improving their ability to access investment necessary for economic growth. However, many poor continue to face high debt burdens that are undermining their ability to combat HIV/AIDS and invest in their people. As President, Hillary will ensure complete debt cancellation for all Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) countries, and will expand HIPC to include more than 20 additional poor countries that commit to using the resources freed up from debt relief effectively. Hilary will ensure that this new debt relief results in additional resources for poor countries to invest in health, education and other key priorities.
7. Maximizing the Impact of Development Assistance: Hillary Clinton is committed to increasing development assistance and making significant progress toward spending an additional 1% of our budget on foreign assistance. She also wants to ensure that increased U.S. development assistance is spent in a smart, coordinated and efficient manner with a measurable impact on people’s lives. Recent attempts to reform foreign assistance have met with opposition and concern that there is not sufficient transparency or input from experts in the field. Hillary Clinton will engage in a comprehensive review of U.S. assistance efforts, in consultation with experts and those carrying out programs at the country level, to identify areas where our development goals are at odds with our development bureaucracy. As part of this review, she will consider consolidating program authority under a single cabinet-level poverty and international development agency. She will also seek to improve coordination with other donor governments, so as to minimize the administrative burdens on recipient countries, and also examine ways in which we can make US aid more efficient and better track, monitor and evaluate the use of U.S. funds. In addition, Hillary would improve operations research, so that we can easily identify and replicate successful programs.