What We’re Reading 2/1/10

Feb 1st, 2010 11:54 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

The Wall Street Journal: War on AIDS Hangs in Balance As U.S. Curbs Help for Africa
The Wall Street Journal reports that the growth in U.S. funding, which underwrites nearly half the world’s AIDS relief, has slowed dramatically, while at the same time, the number of people requiring treatment has skyrocketed. Under the Bush administration, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) set aggressive goals for fighting HIV/AIDS, eventually enrolling some 2.4 million by the end of last year. The Obama administration, however, has signaled nearly flat budgets through fiscal 2011, which have critics questioning whether the administration doesn’t plan to use the full $48 billion authorized by Congress by 2013. Eric Goosby, President Obama’s AIDS czar, said the president is committed to the AIDS fight despite the global economic decline.

The New York Times: Haiti Is Again a Canvas for Approaches to Aid
According to The New York Times, the fact that Haiti was mired in dysfunction well before the earthquake, despite having received more than $5 billion in aid over about two decades, is fueling a contentious debate on whether a grand reconstruction plan can finally fix the country or would be doomed to repeat previous failures. One side argues that Haiti should be temporarily taken over by an international organization, which would govern it and oversee its rebuilding. On the other extreme, minimalists fervently believe that years of failed, foreign-imposed aid projects underscore that this time Haitians need to develop and implement their own plans. And in between are those who argue for a joint Haitian-international reconstruction agency to administer a kind of Marshall Plan.

The New York Times: Orphaned, Raped and Ignored (Op-Ed, Nicholas Kristof)
Author and New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof highlights the harsh and disturbing reality for women and girls in the Congo, a war-ravaged African country where the use of rape as a weapon of war is common place. Kristof recounts the experiences of a nine-year old girl named Chance, whose entire family has been killed, often before her eyes, by the extremist Hutu militia — remnants of those who committed the Rwandan genocide. Kristof concludes his piece by calling for readers to stay tuned as he continues to report from the Congo in the coming days, hoping that the stories of survival he recounts “can inspire world leaders to step forward to stop this slaughter. It’s time to show the same compassion toward Congo that we have toward Haiti.”

The Wall Street Journal: Strategy Shifts on Global Health
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration is expected to propose in its fiscal 2011 budget Monday new funding to combat preventable and tropical diseases, malnutrition and other conditions afflicting the world’s poor, as part of a strategy to broaden its approach to global health. The strategy also seeks to work more closely with individual countries to help strengthen their own health-care systems, and to integrate programs that are now focused on individual diseases, with the ultimate hope being to make care more efficient and easy. Advocates said they would be watching closely on Monday for details of the new plan. A broader global health strategy is “great, but not at the expense of AIDS spending,” said the executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance.

Politico: How to rebuild Haiti (Op-Ed, Robert Zoellick)
The rebuilding of Haiti requires common sense, strategy and long-term commitment, according to the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, who maintains that when the cameras depart — as they are already beginning to do — donors must not depart with them. According to the World Bank President, “Haiti fatigue” has been as great an impediment to development as natural disasters. However, Zoellick is very optimistic, arguing that “We can support the transition from humanitarian aid to reconstruction through food or cash-for-work programs, so Haitians can be paid for clearing and rebuilding infrastructure and planting trees. Community projects can improve conditions for small-scale farming, which over time can supply and then replace food assistance programs. With modest investments in supplies and equipment, Haiti can build labor-intensive construction businesses.”

Reuters: Scientists say crack HIV/AIDS puzzle for drugs
Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV, Reuters reports. British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, allowing them to begin to fully understand how integrase inhibitor drugs work, how they might be improved, and how to stop HIV developing resistance to them. Said one of the researchers, “Despite initially painstakingly slow progress and very many failed attempts, we did not give up and our effort was finally rewarded.”

TAGS: What We're Reading