[procaare] Religious Groups Getting One-quarter of Bush's AIDS Money

["Associated Press" <procaare@healthnet.org>]

Religious groups getting nearly one-quarter of Bush administration's
AIDS money
By RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press Writer
Jan 30 2006
***********

President Bush's $15 billion effort to fight AIDS has handed out nearly
one-quarter of its grants to religious groups, and officials are
aggressively pursuing new church partners that often emphasize disease
prevention through abstinence and fidelity over condom use.

Award recipients include a Christian relief organization famous for its
televised appeals to feed hungry children, a well-known Catholic charity
and a group run by the son of evangelist Billy Graham, according to the
State Department.

The outreach to nontraditional AIDS players comes in the midst of a
debate over how best to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS. The debate has activated groups on both ends of the political
spectrum and created a vast competition for money.

Conservative Christian allies of the president are pressing the U.S.
foreign aid agency to give fewer dollars to groups that distribute
condoms or work with prostitutes. The Bush administration provided more
than 560 million condoms abroad last year, compared with some 350
million in 2001.

Secular organizations in Africa are raising concerns that new money to
groups without AIDS experience may dilute the impact of Bush's historic
three-year-old program.

"We clearly recognize that it is very important to work with faith-based
organizations," said Dan Mullins, deputy regional director for southern
and western Africa for CARE, one of the best-known humanitarian
organizations.

"But at the same time we don't want to fall into the trap of assuming
faith-based groups are good at everything," Mullins said.

The administration is beginning a broad effort to attract newcomers and
distribute money for AIDS prevention and care beyond the large nonprofit
groups that traditionally have led the fight.

The New Partners Initiative reserves $200 million through the 2008
budget year for community and church groups with little or no background
in government grants. Some may have health operations in Africa but no
experience in HIV work. Others may be homegrown groups in Africa that
have not previously sought U.S. support.

"The notion that because people have always received aid money that
they'll get money needs to end," Deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator
Mark Dybul said in an interview with The Associated Press. "The only way
to have sustainable programs is to have programs that are wholly owned
in terms of management personnel at the local level."

Large nonprofit groups involved in health and development projects
typically enlist local religious groups because of their deep community
ties.

The goal now is to penetrate hard-to-reach corners of the target
countries - in Africa, and Haiti and Vietnam - and bring aboard
community and faith groups that previously lacked expertise to win
grants, Dybul said.

Religious organizations last year accounted for more than 23 percent of
all groups that got HIV/AIDS grants, according to the State Department.
Some 80 percent of all secular and religious grant recipients were based
in the countries where the aid is targeted.

Among those winning grants were:

_Samaritan's Purse, which is run by Graham's son, Franklin. It says its
mission is "meeting critical needs of victims of war, poverty, famine,
disease and natural disaster while sharing the Good News of Jesus
Christ."

_World Vision. The 56-year-old Christian organization is known for its
TV appeals - some with celebrities such as game show host Alex Trebek -
that asked people to support a Third World child.

_Catholic Relief Services. It was awarded $6.2 million to teach
abstinence and fidelity in three countries; $335 million in a consortium
providing anti-retroviral treatment; and $9 million to help orphans and
children affected by HIV/AIDs. The group offers "complete and correct
information about condoms" but will not promote, purchase or distribute
them, said Carl Stecker, senior program director for HIV/AIDS.

_HOPE. The global relief organization founded by the International
Churches of Christ recently brought comedian Chris Rock to South Africa
for an AIDS prevention event. AIDS grants support HOPE in several
countries.

_World Relief, founded by the National Association of Evangelicals. It
won=20 $9.7 million for abstinence work in four countries.

Most of the money in Bush's initiative goes to treatment programs,
earning the administration praise for delivering lifesaving drugs and
care to millions of HIV-infected patients.

For prevention, Bush embraces the "ABC" strategy: abstinence before
marriage, being faithful to one partner, and condoms targeted for
high-risk activity. The Republican-led Congress mandated that one-third
of prevention money be reserved for abstinence and fidelity.

Condom promotion to anyone must include abstinence and fidelity
messages, U.S. guidelines say, but those preaching abstinence do not
have to provide condom education.

The abstinence emphasis, say some longtime AIDS volunteers, has led to a
confusing message and added to the stigma of condom use in parts of
Africa.

Village volunteers in Swaziland maintain a supply of free condoms but
say they have few takers.

"This drive for abstinence is putting a lot of pressure on girls to get
married earlier," said Dr. Abeja Apunyo, the Uganda representative for
Pathfinder International, a reproductive health nonprofit group based in
Massachusetts.

"For years now we have been trying to tell our daughters that they
should finish their education and train in a profession before they get
married. Otherwise they have few options if they find themselves
separated from their husbands for some reason," Apunyo said.

An AIDS-program pastor in Uganda explained his abstinence teaching to
unmarried young people.

"Why give an alternative and have them take a risk?" asked the Rev. Sam
Lawrence Ruteikara of the Anglican Church of Uganda, a U.S. grant
recipient.

"This person doesn't have a sexual partner, so why should I report too
much, saying that in case you get a sexual partner, please use a condom.
I am saying, please don't get a sexual partner - don't get involved
because it is risky."

Secular activists say it is not realistic to expect all teenagers to
abstain from sex and that teenagers also should be taught how to protect
themselves.

U.S.-backed programs have spread abstinence and faithfulness education
to more than 13 million people in Uganda, according to the State
Department.

Officials promote the nation as an "ABC" model, with its HIV infection
rate down by more than half in a decade.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said that on a tour of Uganda in January he
saw pro-abstinence rallies and skits praising Bush, and U.S.-supported
groups conducting house-to-house testing, care and counseling.

"The good news about the faith-based groups is not only the passion they
bring to the work but it is the moral authority and the extended numbers
of volunteers they can mobilize to get the word out," Smith said.

But Smith believes the administration is wrongly supporting some
nonprofit groups. He and several other congressional conservatives wrote
to Bush and the U.S. Agency for International Development, contending
that several large grant recipients were pro-prostitution, pro-abortion
or not committed enough to Bush's abstinence priorities.

The letters followed a briefing last year by Focus on the Family, run by
Christian commentator and Bush ally James Dobson. The group's sexual
health analyst, Linda Klepacki, said even some religious groups
emphasize condoms over abstinence.

"We have to be careful that the president's original intent is being
followed where A and B are the emphasized areas of the ABC methodology,"
she said.

Six congressional Democrats, in a letter last week to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, accused the conservatives of a distortion campaign
that undermines a balanced approach to fighting AIDS.

"Their attack is based on a narrow, ideological viewpoint that condemns
condoms and frames any attempt to reach out to high-risk populations as
an endorsement of behaviors that these critics oppose," said Rep. Henry
Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.

USAID has declined to renew funding for two major AIDS-fighting
consortiums, CORE and IMPACT, headed by organizations the conservatives
targeted. Those two groups fund hundreds of community and
religious-based organizations.

CORE, whose lead partner is CARE, is losing its central source of money,
meaning its work survives only if it can win grants from individual
USAID missions in target countries.

Family Health International, the lead organization of IMPACT, brought
hundreds of local and religious groups into its $441 million project,
but was told the administration wants new partners, said Sheila
Mitchell, senior vice president of FHI's Institute for HIV/AIDS.

Dybul said the changes are in keeping with the shift to local groups.
Any suggestion of political motivation is "inaccurate and offensive to
people doing this work," he said. Millions of grant dollars still go to
the groups that were criticized.

One grant was delayed when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., last year
complained about renewing $14 million to Population Services
International, a leading nonprofit condom distributor.

The group's bingo-style games that teach Guatemalan prostitutes about
safe sex misused funds "to exploit victims of the sex trade," Coburn
said. Sen.

Larry Craig, R-Idaho, then wrote to praise PSI's work as "provably
effective and efficient."

USAID divided the grant; condom distribution was separated into the
smaller part so that religious groups could apply for the other part.
PSI eventually won the larger grant. The second is outstanding.

Although administration critics frequently cite PSI as a group that fell
from favor under the new initiative, "we have not been eviscerated,"
said Stewart Parkinson, a senior program analyst.

The group lost U.S. grants in Uganda and Tanzania but retained others.
And Parkinson said he had no indication of political motivation.

--------------
Associated Press reporters Alexandra Zavis in South Africa, Thulani
Mthethwa in Swaziland, Katy Pownall in Uganda, and Lewis Mwanangombe in
Zambia contributed to this report.

Cross-posted from the HealthGap List
Jan 30 2006

Online: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060130-0019-aidsprevention.html