In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush announced the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR): a five year, $15 billion initiative to help combat the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. This initial step was a watershed that marked the administration's commitment to tackle a disease that has destroyed and disrupted millions of lives, especially in Africa and Asia.

Of the $15 billion, one billion dollars was promised to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. According to Martin Shupack, to date, "The Global Fund has proven to be an efficient, result-oriented mechanism to respond to these three killer diseases. Independent from the United Nations, it is a public-private partnership created to mobilize new resources."

However, the Global Fund is currently underfunded, and if the goals to fight HIV/AIDS are to be met, we need to call our governments and private individuals to increase their funding to combat this terrible disease. The president's 2007 budget proposes to increase funding for global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria initiatives. The proposal includes approximately $4 billion for PEPFAR, with $300 million for the Global Fund.

This $300 million is a great shortfall, since it is estimated that the Global Fund needs an estimated $1.2 billion. Though this amount of money seems to be a lot, it pales in comparison to the amounts spent on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In response to this shortfall, the Senate passed the Santorum-Durbin Amendment in March, which increases by $566 million the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund. This means that the total U.S. contribution would be $866 million. Even though this amount is still not adequate, it is an improvement.

Since the amendment was only passed in the Senate, it means that the Senate and House versions of the foreign operations budget are different and must be merged and then approved by both chambers of Congress. It is imperative that we keep talking to our representatives to increase funds to deal with this human catastrophe.

Church World Service points out that "The fight for increased funding will be an uphill battle as the U.S. debt grows and members of Congress are faced with hard decisions on how to cut spending." With an ever-tightening budget, it is becoming difficult to allocate funds for the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

Overall, global funding for the response to HIV/AIDS has increased from about $2 billion to an estimated $6 billion in 2004. Still, this isn't enough. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that $15 billion will be needed to effectively respond to AIDS in low-income and middle-income countries in 2006. That number will rise to $22 billion in 2008, and most of that will need to come from the international community. The worst affected and poorest countries will depend on foreign funding for percent of their HIV/AIDS resources.