United States Mission Geneva

In light of the International AIDS Society conference being held in Vienna this week, many people have raised questions about the Obama Administration’s commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The amount of money spent on HIV/AIDS cannot be the measure of success. The right measures are lives saved and lengthened.

The U.S. government, backed by U.S. scientists and corporations, is investing money and energy into reducing global hunger and poverty on a huge scale by 2015. A State Department official overseeing the Feed the Future program, Patricia Haslach, told a congressional subcommittee July 20 that President Obama’s pledge of $3.5 billion at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, for agricultural development and food security through 2012 has attracted an additional $18.5 billion pledged by other donors.

While longer-term planning is under way for Haiti’s reconstruction, an aggressive effort is being made to prepare Haitians for potentially severe tropical storms and a dangerous hurricane season, as well as the flooding and landslides that accompany them, a senior U.S. development official says.

The January 12 earthquake in Haiti changed everything for Sandy, 15, and now the relief process is changing her world again—this time for the better. After school each morning, she heads to a USAID-funded “Espace Timoun,” or child-friendly space, in Jacmel, Haiti, where children from ages 3 to 17 partake in age-appropriate activities and play with friends.

Innovation and technology can do for human development today what the Green Revolution did for agriculture. And we can generate significant yields from very modest inputs. One recent World Bank study showed that in a typical developing country, a 10 percent increase in the penetration rate of mobile phones led to an almost 1 percent increase in per capita GDP.

The United States remains the leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, funding more than a quarter of the international financing for the disease.
President Obama has undertaken a comprehensive Global Health Initiative (GHI) to help partner countries improve the health of their people through an integrated approach that recognizes that PEPFAR is central to fulfilling Millennium Development Goals (MDGs 4,5,and 6)

It has been six months since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti and claimed the lives of 230,000 people. Hundreds of thousands more were injured and left homeless. In Haiti’s hour of greatest need the international community responded.

Health is, in fact, at the heart of human progress. And we recognize that the wellbeing of people around the world is not just an important end in and of itself, but it is strongly linked to the security, prosperity and partnership of our country with our colleagues around the world. And that’s why global health is a central part of President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s plan for a more peaceful and a more prosperous global community.

“The world has changed in the last decade,” Shah said, “and the development community – starting with our agency – must change as well. To get better results we have to become development entrepreneurs, and I believe our ambitious reform agenda will help us get there