The Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 20, 2007)
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Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I want to commend Chairwoman Lowey for working diligently on this bill. She has produced a fairly good product here, and I want to commend her more for working with Mr. Wolf and myself to address many of our concerns.
She has produced a bill that is good in many respects. I appreciate the efforts as well of the staff that have worked very hard on this bill. A great example of working together is what my colleague from New York, Mr. Israel, was talking about in dealing with Darfur. I want to commend Mr. Wolf for his passion on that issue and his passion for the issue of human rights throughout the globe. I also want to commend Ranking Member Wolf and Chairwoman Lowey for their work on Colombia, and I am very pleased with the final product that they have there.
I am also very pleased that we have included language dealing with better accountability for the Global Fund to provide greater transparency. I commend Chairwoman Lowey for including the language that I introduced, the amendment, to get a better understanding of why the participation of faith-based organizations in the Global Fund appears to be significantly underrepresented. Numerous faith-based groups have been on the ground providing health care in many of those these countries for decades. In recent decades they have been on the frontlines in fighting against the spread of AIDS.
I saw the critical role that many of those faith-based groups provided firsthand when I visited Africa twice in recent years. I can tell you what part of the problem is, and it is really spelled out very nicely, and I will include for the Record this brief 3-page article from Catholic News Services, ``African Churches Find Global Fund Money Fairly Inaccessible.''
Basically, what I feel is going on here with those faith-based groups is relatively simple. They are small. They are out there. They are going into these villages on foot and on mopeds. They don't have the ability to apply for grants with multi-billion dollar organizations in Geneva. It is going to require the Global Fund to reach into these countries, identify the groups, the church groups, the faith-based groups, that are doing the work. Frequently, they are on the pointy end of the spear. So I commend the gentlewoman for that language.
I know there are a few issues that we disagree on. The Mexico City policy language, we will have amendments to address that. Certainly, I understand that the gentlewoman has tried to reach out on this issue.
For me personally, the issue is an organization that is not only maybe providing abortion but as well is actually actively lobbying to overturn pro-life laws in many of those countries. We should not be supporting them even indirectly.
Finally, let me just close on the PEPFAR language. I played a role in getting the President's plan through the Congress, the authorizing language and the appropriations language. To me one of the most important things was the requirement that a portion, actually a small portion, I think it is 20, 25 percent of the preventive dollars go to abstinence education and abstinence training.
I want to make it very clear to my colleagues the reason why I felt so strongly about that and why I feel that we should continue the requirement that abstinence education be included in the preventive dollars is my experience in going into Uganda. Uganda lowered its AIDS incidence from 18 percent to 6 percent, a two-thirds reduction in AIDS.
The Global Fund didn't exist. PEPFAR did not exist when they did this. They did not do this through distributing condoms and comprehensive sex education. They did it through what they called ABC, abstinence before marriage, be faithful in marriage. We all know, you can't expect everybody to comply. But what is amazing to me is when you educate people on this thousands of people comply.
I just want to share with my colleagues that I had a meeting just 2 weeks ago with a Parliamentarian from Uganda who was an epidemiologist and a physician who was there from the ground up, and he verified just what I said, that people responded to the message.
Let me just finish up on that. Last July, southern African AIDS experts met and they officially listed ``reducing multiple and concurrent partnerships'' as their number one priority for the prevention of spreading HIV. It was not distributing condoms and comprehensive sex education, it was reducing concurrent and multiple partnerships. That is what this is really all about.
Let me just close and again commend the gentlewoman for a bill that has a lot of good in it. I am focusing on some of the things I disagree with. But for everything I disagree with, there are 10 to 20 different things that are good in it.
The spending level, I am very concerned that the President may veto this bill. I know there are a lot of worthwhile programs covered in the spending. I certainly would like to see us get a bill enacted into law. I think that would be to the credit of the chairwoman and the ranking member, the good gentleman from Virginia.
[From the Catholic News Service]
African Churches Find Global Fund Money Fairly Inaccessible
(By Michael Swan)
NAIROBI, KENYA (CNS)--In Kenya churches provide about 40 percent of all health care in remote and impoverished areas with no government services, but for their AIDS programs, churches receive no money from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
``Since the inception of the Global Fund, the Kenyan bishops' conference has not accessed any direct funding from the Global Fund, even after applying to all the rounds,'' said Titus Munene, an HIV/AIDS program coordinator for the Kenyan bishops' conference.
``It isn't rocket science to say if 40 percent of the health care is in the church system in Kenya, you would think a good portion of (Global Fund money) is going to go to our operational system. But unfortunately, it isn't that way,'' said Maryknoll Father Ed Phillips, who runs seven community-based health care clinics.
The Geneva-based Global Fund, established in 2002, is a partnership among governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities.
The Catholic Church alone provides more than 25 percent of all AIDS care in the world, according to Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic aid network. All faith-based organizations combined have received just 6 percent of the Global Fund's money since the first disbursements in 2002.
The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, which represents South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland, has almost stopped applying for Global Fund money.
More than 18 percent of adult South Africans are HIV-positive, and the church is the largest health care provider after the government. But church bodies have been unable to access Global Fund money either directly or through the South African National AIDS Council, which coordinates South African applications to the Global Fund.
``I have sat on SANAC, the South African National AIDS Council, which is also the CCM (country coordinating mechanism) for the Global Fund. It has not been a helpful process,'' Dominican Sister Alison Munro said in an e-mail from Pretoria, South Africa.
``The Global Fund process is too large and too cumbersome for the churches,'' said Sister Alison. ``If they (the churches) could apply directly to the Global Fund, some would. They can't because of the procedures. ..... The work involved is too much for any church group other than a national structure or a group with lots of capacity.''
While many nongovernmental organizations employ grant application experts, church-based agencies have tended to regard such functions as wasteful of donor money.
Munene said when the churches do not get Global Fund money it weakens the fight against AIDS among some of the poorest Africans. A lack of international and Kenyan-government funding has forced mission hospitals, clinics and dispensaries to charge some of the poorest people in Kenya for AIDS treatment and services, while relatively well-off people in the cities are accessing free services.
Munene said when church agencies charge for health care it ``means some of the poor cannot access services, since there are no government facilities in those rural areas.''
The 6 percent of Global Fund money going to faith-based organizations translates into $325 million spread over five years in dozens of countries. The Global Fund recognizes the number is too low, said spokesman Oliver Sabot.
``Given the essential role that they play in health care in many countries, particularly in Africa, we would like to see the amount of funding to FBOs (faith-based organizations) increase,'' Sabot said.
Part of the problem has been that churches have not done enough to fulfill conditions that might be expected from major international funders, such as making detailed applications for funding and monitoring expenditures to the satisfaction of donors, said Father Robert Vitillo of Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican's most prominent adviser on HIV/AIDS policy.
``Each of these funding mechanisms comes with its own set of challenges for (faith-based organizations), which are more expert in providing support, care, treatment and prevention education than in completing such complicated funding applications and then in monitoring and reporting on the funds received,'' said Father Vitillo.
Even if it is a lot of red tape, church organizations have to be willing to fight through it in order to continue delivering effective AIDS prevention and care, said Father Phillips. But the Global Fund also has a responsibility to help churches through the red tape, he said.
``The churches have to get more proactive,'' said Father Phillips. Sabot said the Global Fund has taken steps to ensure that faith-based organizations are able to apply for money. But by relying on countries' coordinating agencies or mechanisms, the Global Fund has become subject to the politics of Africa.
``This hands-off approach does mean that bias at the country level is sometimes reflected,'' said Sabot. He said sometimes faith-based groups are excluded from country proposals ``either because of deliberate efforts by the government or other groups, or simply because they are less experienced with applying for international aid funding, and not enough outreach and support was provided to them'' by country coordinating agencies.
``We have taken steps to help correct both these problems, but there is still more to be done,'' Sabot said.
Father Phillips said more than bureaucratic bias is involved in shutting churches out of national applications to the Global Fund.
``The church was considered in some of these countries to be the opposition to the government,'' he said. ``Naturally, if they are considered to be opposition, well, they're (government mechanisms) going to make sure they're not going to target a lot of money'' for the church.
Father Phillips said African bishops must get tough and vocal about demanding that they be represented fairly in national applications to the Global Fund, but Munene said the churches may be talking to a brick wall when they demand fair representation.
``The Kenyan bishops have made frantic efforts to meet the minister of health on several occasions, and even his excellency, the president. And promises were given, but to date the pledges have not been fulfilled,'' Munene said.
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