U.S. investment in global health has been successful, deserves continued congressional support

May 11 2012

"Over the next few weeks, appropriators will be engaged in the challenging task of evaluating U.S. foreign assistance funding, including how effectively Congress' global health investments are being used," Charles Lyons, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; Molly Joel Coye, interim president and CEO of PATH; Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children; and Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, write in this Roll Call opinion piece. They continue, "As organizations funded in part by the U.S. government to implement global health programs in the field," we "see firsthand how U.S. global health programs are working, and why now is not the time to cut multilateral and bilateral funding for these efforts."

"As global health implementers working on the ground, we believe that our work is most effective when both multilateral and bilateral HIV, TB, malaria, and maternal and child health programs have strong financial support and work in conjunction with each other," they write. "Congress' decade-long investment in improving global health has been more successful than most of us in this field could have ever imagined," they write and highlight progress against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child mortality. "Unfortunately, tough economic realities and questions about funding pipelines could result in drastic cuts to many of the programs directly responsible for this success," they note, concluding, "The impact of multilateral and bilateral global health investments has been nothing less than transformational, and they deserve continued strong Congressional support" (5/9).