Development advocates urge Congress to protect global health funding, blog reports

Mar 25 2013

"Earlier this week, the [Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC)] and other global health and international development advocates called on the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee to fully fund key programs in the foreign affairs budget," Ashley Bennett, the GHTC's policy officer, writes in the coalition's "Breakthroughs" blog. "Advocates presented testimony regarding the fiscal year (FY) 2014 budget for State and Foreign Operations, which includes funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and many other global health and research programs," she writes and details some of the testimony heard at the hearing. She concludes, "These programs must be protected, and the U.S. leadership in this area must not falter. To achieve this goal, Congress must ensure that global health research programs at USAID and across the government are robustly funded in FY 2014" (3/21).