Obama: “I’ll Double our Foreign Assistance”
July 15th, 2008 at 5:46 pm | posted by Virginia SimmonsSenator Obama delivered a long speech in Washington, DC this morning. A relevant part to our work:
“We will have to provide meaningful resources to meet critical priorities. I know development assistance is not the most popular program, but as President, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world. That was true with the Marshall Plan, and that must be true today. That’s why I’ll double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to halve global poverty and to roll back disease. To send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, “You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.”
Here’s a link to the full text.
-Virginia Simmons
July 15th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I think ONE and PEPFAR are amazing organizations. That America gives so much assistance to foreign countries is very commendable and I think it should continue. However, as the Director of an AIDS Service Organization in America, I have to say that I am outraged by our governments lack of funding for AIDS in America. PWA’s are dying because of wait lists for medications in their individual states. In America AIDS prevention is funded on the federal level, treatment is funded, but not fully, hence the implemented wait lists in many states, and services for people with AIDS is not funded at all. AIDS in America is still seen by most as a moral disease not an infectious one. This needs to change!