What a budget cut could actually mean

May 13th, 2010 9:55 AM UTC
By Erin Hohlfelder

As you might have noticed scrolling across the front page of our website, ONE just launched an important new campaign called “Fix This Budget” in response to proposed cuts to the budget that would target the accounts we care about most—those that fight poverty and disease across the developing world. In the midst of economic crises rippling across the US and Europe, it might be easier politically to make cuts to the relatively tiny international affairs budget than to other, bigger accounts. But when you start to take a closer look at what the proposed budget cut looks like in human terms, suddenly it’s harder to explain away.

Take the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria—one of the most successful weapons we have in the fight against global disease, and a key recipient of US funding from the international affairs account. President Obama has proposed $1 billion for valuable Global Fund programming in Fiscal Year 2011—certainly a good chunk of money, but below the $1.75 billion we are asking for. So on top of that, let’s look at what even a ONE PERCENT cut to the President’s request would mean:

• 63,000 fewer bed nets to protect families from malaria +
• 15,000 fewer treatments for malaria +
• 8,000 fewer treatments for TB +
• 37,000 fewer HIV tests +
• 1,100 fewer antiretroviral drugs for people infected with HIV

If that’s not compelling enough, add just a ONE PERCENT cut to the GAVI Alliance—a leading international mechanism improving access to life-saving vaccines for children across the developing world—could result in either:

• 304,054 fewer doses of pentavalent vaccine (5 primary childhood vaccines: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hepatitis B, and Hib (pneumonia))

or

• 128,571 fewer doses of the new vaccine for pneumococcal (which kills 800,000 kids under 5 annually)

It’s easy to walk away from percentages, but it’s much more difficult to walk away from the people whose lives could be improved and saved from the key interventions we fund with our international affairs budget. Sign on to our petition now to let your Senators know that you will hold them accountable.

TAGS: FY2011 US budget, Spotlight