In 2003 Mr Bush launched PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The programme was endowed with a huge budget: by the end of its first five-year phase, in September, it will have spent $18.8 billion, mostly in Africa, on preventing the spread of HIV and keeping those infected alive. The White House has called it the biggest ever donation by one country to fight a single disease.
Many criticize PEPFAR, however. The first authorization (by a Republican-controlled Congress) required that $1 billion—of the $3 billion set aside for HIV prevention—go to promoting abstinence before marriage. The first bill also required organizations receiving money to take a clear stand against prostitution.
Tying money to “abstinence only” programmes binds the hands of those on the ground who probably know best how to respond to local conditions, warns Ellen Marshall of the International Women's Health Coalition.
Cartoon from The Economist Click here to watch CNN's interview with George Bush about involvement in Africa.
Other articles covering President Bush's visit and its implications:
CNN reports in Monrovia, Liberia that in a humid rehearsal studio, Liberia's pop queen is practicing her newest single -- a song called "Thank you" to be released for President Bush's visit.
The New York Times reports: "On the eve of a planned trip to Africa, President Bush thrust himself into the role of peacemaker on Thursday, as his plans to promote American efforts against poverty and disease gave way to a more pressing imperative: addressing the violence and turmoil on the continent."
The Washington post reports that President Bush vowed yesterday to use a week-long trip to Africa slated to start today to push for peaceful resolutions to conflicts in Kenya and Sudan, but he rebuffed calls to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing to pressure China into using its influence to stop the violence in Sudan's Darfur region.
The Los Angeles Times reports that on the eve of his second trip to sub-Saharan Africa, President Bush announced Thursday that he will dispatch Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya, a fresh sign of U.S. concern about the political discord that has troubled the East African nation.
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