Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money
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Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money
By RITA BEAMISH , 01.29.2006, 12:16 PM
President Bush's $15 billion effort to fight AIDS has handed out nearly
a quarter of its grants to religious groups, and aggressively is
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 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.
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 - 13 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 antiretroviral 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 $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.
The administration provided more than 560 million condoms abroad last
year, compared with some 350 million in 2001.
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."
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 and 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, D-Calif.
USAID has declined to renew funding for two major AIDS-fighting
consortiums, CORE and IMPACT, headed by organizations the conservatives
targeted.
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 Alex Zavis in South Africa, Thulani Mthetwa
in Swaziland, Katy Pownall in Uganda, and Lewis Mwanangombe in Zambia
contributed to this report.
http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/feeds/ap/2006/01/29/ap2484678.html