--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There is one other thing that hurts, at least > according to my daughter > Neli. According to her, Bush's AIDs program was > mostly propaganda. When > the time came to fund it, the money wasn't allocated > as promised.
I know that a lot of Africans feel this way, but everything I've seen suggests that it's not fair. Given the desperate situation in Africa, being fair is more than any human being could be, of course. The Bush Administration has certainly put far more effort into the problem than anyone ever did before. Second, they've found out what _everyone_ who has ever tried to do this has found out (including the pharma companies who have spent huge sums of money on AIDS in Africa, actually). There's no one there to receive the money. The structures aren't in place. That's what the Bush people have said, over and over again, when people ask them why the funding hasn't reached the levels they promised (although, again, they are much higher than they were in the past) and as far as I can tell this is true (i.e., it's possible that if the structures were there the funding would be no higher, I don't know, and neither does anyone else not in the Administration, but at the moment, if the funding levels were higher, it wouldn't do any good, and they have publicly stated their intent to increase funding as the structures come into place). > > Second, while we cannot stop the spread of AIDs in > Africa, there are > measures to slow it down. Again, folks who have > made at least a small dent > in the spread are prohibited from getting funding > because of the > administration's supporters discomfort with the > connection between condoms, > birth control and agencies that favor abortions. I'm obviously not happy with their position on this issue. OTOH, I don't feel the blame is all one-sided, either. The agencies involved are, after all, the ones asking for money. It is not unreasonable for them to adapt to the demands of the people writing the checks. > > When Neli gets home tonight, I'll double check on > her sources. But, since > Zambia now has a life expectancy in the lower 30s, > she feels this rather > strongly. And, I know that its not just Bush > bashing on her part because > she also said that she has to admit that Bush/Powell > have done far more > than the UN or anyone else about addressing Sudan. > > Dan M. Finally, one other thing. The country in Africa that has probably handled the AIDS crisis the best is Uganda. The AIDS infection rate there peaked in 1991, and has dropped ever since. In 1991 the infection rate was 21 percent. In 2001 it was _6_ percent. Uganda adopted the ABC approach - basically Abstinence, Be faithful, use a Condom. The slogan they used, IIRC, was "Zero grazing outside your own field." The key component to its success was using organized religion to preach the importance of this message. The Ugandan approach has not been used in other parts of Africa because the international AIDS community doesn't want to deal with religious groups, and doesn't want to talk about the fact that moralistic preaching on sexual behavior is the most cost-effective way of dealing with AIDS. The Bush Administration has (not nearly enough, but somewhat) gotten behind ABC and the Ugandan program when no one else was willing to do that. Not, of course, that they get any credit for any of that. Some of the opponents of the Administration, from what I can tell, are okay with mass death from AIDS, as long as the Administration doesn't look good because it's doing something about it. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
