HIV/AIDS: Obama’s easy win
By Kristin Peterson | 9 December 2008
with Alan Ingram
Amid international financial meltdown and recession, the challenge of withdrawal from Iraq and the growing crisis in Afghanistan, there will be few “quick wins” available to President Obama. But fixing the US response to HIV/AIDS is one way he can do a lot of good relatively quickly and begin the move towards a new standard for international engagement. As the world prepares to reflect on its response to the pandemic, it is worth asking what Obama might achieve by World AIDS Day 2009.
Obama will inherit President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (the PEPFAR programme), which has helped to place hundreds of thousands of people on life-saving medication. PEPFAR was launched in 2003, and has spent some $19 billion so far with another $48 billion (including $9 billion for tuberculosis and malaria) pencilled in for 2009-2013. But while it is often cited as the only positive foreign policy accomplishment of the outgoing administration, it is also deeply controversial. The programme has been undermined by the US culture wars, the Republican assault on science and a unilateral and privatised approach to foreign policy. So what must Obama do about it?
There are a number of things that could be done quickly.