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PEPFAR bill – Rewire News, commentary, analysis and investigative reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice issues. Sun, 22 Oct 2017 21:24:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 President Obama: Do the Right Thing on HIV Prevention Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:15:18 +0000 When it comes to making sure taxpayer-funded AIDS programs are comprehensive and designed to deliver the most effective interventions for people in need, the Obama administration’s track record has not been good.

The post President Obama: Do the Right Thing on HIV Prevention appeared first on Rewire.

This morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will release PEPFAR Blueprint: Creating an AIDS-free Generation, the Obama administration’s plan for combating HIV and AIDS. For the plan to be effective, both family planning and condoms for HIV prevention must be included. Unfortunately, when it comes to making sure taxpayer-funded AIDS programs are comprehensive and designed to deliver the most effective interventions for people in need, the Obama administration’s track record has not been good.

PEPFAR’s FY2013 Country Operational Plan (COP) Guidance recognizes “there continues to be significant unmet need for voluntary family planning and reproductive health services worldwide” and asserts that “voluntary family planning should be part of comprehensive quality care for persons living with HIV.” The World Health Organization and the Obama Administration’s Global Health Initiative both argue forcefully and consistently that access to family planning is central to women’s lives—arguments that are affirmed by the FY13 COP. Nevertheless, despite PEPFAR’s repeated acknowledgement of the importance of family planning for succeeding in the fight against HIV, and the assertion that “PEPFAR programs should be optimized as a platform on which to incorporate and integrate other health services,” the FY13 COP inexplicably introduces a new restriction: “PEPFAR funds may not be used to purchase family planning commodities.”

This is shameful. Excluding family planning from PEPFAR ignores the reality of people living longer and healthier lives after contracting HIV—people who often continue to be sexually active and deserve the right to choose whether and when to have children.

Too often, the Obama administration has allowed faith-based groups, especially those affiliated with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), to provide second-rate services in the name of the American people and with our tax dollars. For example, the USCCB refuses to agree to requirements that HIV prevention programs provide condoms. The bishops’ position on this is not only far from the mainstream, it runs counter even to the beliefs of American Catholics, the majority of whom support condom use to prevent HIV.

Other scandals include requirements that non-US organizations aren’t even eligible for PEPFAR funds unless they take an anti-prostitution pledge. This means that they simply cannot serve the needs of sex workers.

Any smart prevention strategy is tailored to meet the needs on the ground, not the distressingly common desire to placate one or another conservative group.

The real scandal is that HIV, a tiny, complicated, ever-shifting virus that has confounded researchers for decades, is proving easier to tackle than the ongoing stigma, moralizing and confusion in policies ostensibly designed to help. The needs of people living with HIV and AIDS can be seen without either a microscope or scientific training. Individuals in HIV-affected areas need the resources that will allow them to govern their lives with dignity—appropriate treatment, contraception allowing them to choose whether and when to have children, and protective measures like condoms so that they may keep themselves and their partners safe. We’re making progress on the science—but it’s up to policymakers to do their bit and get these advances to the people who need them.

The post President Obama: Do the Right Thing on HIV Prevention appeared first on Rewire.

Tracking PEPFAR in the Senate — PEPFAR Approved Despite Flaws; Deal to Lift HIV Travel Ban Reached! Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:03:01 +0000 The Senate passes PEPFAR, removes the HIV travel ban, and reinforces some ideological restrictions that should have been removed. More people will be helped, and that is good.

The post Tracking PEPFAR in the Senate — PEPFAR Approved Despite Flaws; Deal to Lift HIV Travel Ban Reached! appeared first on Rewire.

This post was created during the Senate deabte on PEPFAR July 15 and 16, 2008. Time stamps have been used throughout as the piece was updated.

Given the number of quorum calls and diversions to morning business, its hard to call this "live blogging" but we’ll be updating threads here today as the Senate makes its way through the amendments on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). See our extensive expert coverage for the reality of the debate that should have been, and why the debates in the Senate are so far removed from the reality of where these negotiations started before Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), died.

11:50 a.m.
DeMint Defeated. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) tried to make PEPFAR sound like a bill to force women to have abortions, but failed as the Senate voted to table his bill 70-24. DeMint broke from Senate protocol to spread this misinformation, PEPFAR has nothing to do with abortion. He forced supporters of PEPFAR to table an amendment to reduce the number of countries PEPFAR could work in from 120 to 15, another bad idea promoted by DeMint, in order to defeat the attached abortion amendment applying Kemp-Kasten to PEPFAR.

12:05 p.m.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) calls President Bush’s decision to pursue PEPFAR "inspired" after seeing a time when it seemed like there was little that could be done to help slow HIV infections and get treatments to people living with AIDS.

Durbin says if you want to understand the developing world, to evaluate a nation’s ability to overcome their problems, you should ask "How do you treat women," explaining that women’s needs in the developing world are paramount. "If women are treated like property, slaves, or chattel; if they have no voice in decisions of the family or community; it is likely that some of the worst medical and economic conditions will continue, and worsen. But if women have a role, if they are educated, if they have a voice in their communities and their government it makes all the difference in the world," said Durbin.

While the language on the Senate floor sounds great, the reality of these negotations is that many of the issues impacting women, especially the integration of HIV and reproductive health services, have been completely ignored by the negotiators.

And yes, this is an important and good bill, as many will say today and the mainstream media will soon proclaim, we just maintain it could have been better.

12:37 p.m. Senate adjourns until 2:15 p.m.

2:50 p.m. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) introduces an amendment to appropriate no more than $10 billion in the final fifth year of PEPFAR, suggesting that we should, in essence, spend $10 billion per year. This amendment has some AIDS activists anxious because they are unclear about how the vote will go. One note here is that Kyl does seem to be giving in on the fact that the $50 billion dollar pacakge will not be reduced to $35 billion as a DeMint amendment yet to be voted on proposes.

The issue that Kyl doesn’t address is the fact that it takes time to ramp up programs, especially complex global public health programs. Kyl did acknowledge that under the current PEPFAR, appropriations have increased in later the years, totalling $6 billion in the final year. The Congressional Budget Office and other organizations have looked at the ability for PEPFAR countries to absorb the additional capacity. While there are concerns about increasing capacity over time, the best way to ramp up is to do it over the five years, which may require appropriating larger sums at the end of the five year program, which the Kyl amendment would prohibit.

3:00 p.m. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) raises issues of fraud and abuse as a reason for more oversight of PEPFAR, essentially accusing African nations of misusing funds. But so far most of the abuse and misuse of funds in PEPFAR has been a result of continuing to fund failed abstinence-only programs, and people like:

Anita Smith: to the President’s Advisory Council on
HIV/AIDS (PACHA), a body established during the Clinton administration
to provide policy recommendations on the U.S. government’s response to
HIV/AIDS. An outspoken opponent of comprehensive sexuality education
with close ties to the Bush administration, Smith is vice president of
the Institute for Youth Development and head of the Children’s AIDS
Fund (CAF). CAF was originally founded as Americans for Sound AIDS/HIV
Policy by Smith and her husband, Shepherd Smith, in the 1990s. In 2004
their organization applied for funding from the President’s Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to implement an "abstinence-only" HIV
prevention program in Uganda, but a federal expert panel deemed their
project "not suitable for funding." Without explanation, the Office of
the Global AIDS Coordinator overrode the panel’s decision and
authorized the grant to CAF. On February 15, 2005, Rep. Henry Waxman
(D-CA) wrote to the Global AIDS Coordinator’s office to learn why the
grant was made despite the proposal’s negative rating, but to date he
has received no response.

Sen. Gregg is right to be concerned about abuse, and about making sure that the money is spent on actually delivering HIV treatment and prevention services where it is necessary — he should just be looking a little closer to home for where the problems are.

3:21 p.m. Sen. Dick Lugar, (R-IN), rises to oppose the Gregg amendment, citing many ways in which various agencies already pay very close attention to how PEPFAR money is being spent, thus making additional oversights redundant. Lugar cites extensive reviews of monies spent in ten PEPFAR countries, with five reports still in the field. He then says, "the review of [PEPFAR] comes down to the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives, the alleviation of extraordinary suffering on this planet, and I would simply say, from the standpoint of our foreign policy, one of the strongest ways the United States has made an impact, on a number of countries, in which our public diplomacy, or diplomacy of any sort has not been very successful in the past."

3:30 p.m. Sen. Gregg engages Sen. Lugar in questions about Inspector General issues, Lugar points out the Gregg’s approach does not save money. Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) lifts large binders to demonstrate the oversight that already exists, and says that USAID and others "know how to know" about tracking dollars overseas, which the people already charged with oversight do. Sen. Gregg seems to be done.

3:57 p.m. Jim Bunning (R-KY) speaks to his amendment reauthorizing the current PEPFAR program at existing funding levels. Sen. Biden says the Bunning amendment belies an important point, that the $15 billion original authorization was insufficient, and that understanding the challenge of AIDS means that we share expertise of how to fight AIDS with all nations, even developed nations like Russia and China. Biden talks about what has been learned during the first five years from reports by the General Accoutning Office, noting that some of the earmarks in the original PEPFAR for certain kinds of prevention activities were actual impediments to progress. The Institutes of Medicine and GAO notes that abstinence-only programs presented imediments and programs to prevent mother-to-child transmission were underfunded, that HIV and reproductive health services should be integrated — all issues that have not been dealt with openly in these debates, limiting the program’s success.

Um, Sen. Biden, you might want to look at the bill you are leading the debate for and double check where the improvements suggested by IOM and GAO about abstinence-only and women have gone. We have learned a great deal more, Sen. Biden, too bad the bill you support isn’t actually putting all of the lessons to use to make this the most effective bill possible.

4:14 p.m. Sen. Bob Menedez (D-NJ) speaks uses supportive talking points in brief remarks.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) says PEPFAR is one of the foreign policy programs that work. Brownback, talking about uniting people behind the PEPFAR mission, raises the very issues his colleagues on the far-right have used to divide, suggesting that it is those on the left trying to change PEPFAR. He said, PEPFAR "needs to stay true to its mission. I want to make sure it stays true to its life-saving program, not slip into other areas, perilous waters that some may want it to do, but that get divisive for the United States. Some people may want to push these funds into family planning, or population control and possibly abortion and that gets us divided."

No, Sen. Brownback, no one has suggested anything of the sort. The GAO, IOM and World Health Organization reports did suggest the integration of reproductive health and HIV services for women to more efficiently deliver prevention and health care needs, for cost efficiency, and to stregthen mother-to-child prevention efforts. No one has suggested that PEPFAR be used for abortion, except those of you on the far-right, who have skillfully used it to scare the negotiators from doing what they know is right based on experience in PEPFAR coutnries and many independent reports.

Brownback goes on to champion the fact that this negotiated bill maintains and increases funding for failed abstincence-only provisions, prohibits organizations from delivering prevention services to sex workers, and strengthens the conscience clause that allows people to deny help to other marginalized populations, based on personal judgments.

4:34 p.m. Sen. Clinton (D-NY) says the bill "focuses on the needs of women and girls." I know she’s been busy. She would have been the ideal person to lead efforts to make sure that statement were really true given all the work the Clinton Foundation has done on AIDS around the world, and her life-long commitment to women and girls. She then moved on the Medicare and the Bush veto, it’s better politics afterall.

5:30 p.m. The Bunning Amendment is defeated by a vote of 80-16 . The amendment sought to reauthorize PEPFAR at current levels, reducing the proposed $50 billion package to $15 billion over the next five years.

With 70 votes defeating the DeMint amendment and 80 votes defeating the Bunning amendment, it appears the Senate will have the 60 votes necessary to clear the "Point of Order" threshold on the HIV travel ban. Without 60 votes on that amendment, the entire bill will be defeated, forincing negotiators to strip out the HIV travel ban and then resubmit PEPFAR authorization for another full vote.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

11:10 a.m. – Senator Thune (R-ND) speaks to his amendment for use on American Indian
reservations authorizing $1 billion for water and infrastructure
needs for Indian Health Services for Native Americans. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
describes third world conditions on indian reservations and need in support of Thune Amendment.

11:38 a.m. Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) discusses his amendment establishing the US Authorization and Sunset Commision to oversee and make reccomendations
on PEPFAR spending and decide when to end the program. Sen. Lugar speaks opposing Cornyn Amendment saying, "I do not believe that
we should be turning oversight of this program to an unelected
commission." He notes that Senate Committees already must oversee the spending of the
bill and can hold up spending in committee.

Senator Lugar is right about the amount of oversight, but fails to mention that even with mounds of testimony about minor changes to improve PEPFAR, submitted to Congress by GAO, WHO, IOM and others, Congress can still provide "oversight" without listening to the substance. The Cornyn Amendment would not have changed that either, just added another layer of reporting that Congress could ignore.

Sen. Biden says the Cornyn Amendment would be bad idea for PEPFAR as fighting AIDS requires a long term commitment, calling it "dangerous" and noting that the program requires resuthorization again in five years, so in fact it has a Sunset Clause built into it already.

Defending his amendment, Sen. Cornyn said, "people have the right to know their money is being spent

10:58 a.m. Sen. Kyl speaks to the Thune Amendment saying, "while the total spending earmarked for PEPFAR was too
high according to the CBO, it at least indicated that we were willing to
spend that money abroad on a worthy humaitarian case. The Thune Amendment
wants the Senate to consider the similarly dire conditions that exist
on our indian reservations."

The Thune Amendment is adopted on a voice vote, taking $2 billion from the global AIDS policy and redirecting to Native American water, heatlh and infrastructure needs. This amendment appears to be a literal price paid to get overall support for the bill from some fiscal conservatives. Western Senators and others found it difficult to vote against for various reasons.

12:16 p.m. – Cornyn Amendment to include a Sunset Commission is defeated on a vote of 63 against and 32 in favor.

2:30 p.m. Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) speaks in favor of PEPFAR saying that the increased price tag is worth paying because of the success PEPFAR demonstrated in its first five years.

3:50 p.m. Sen. Jim DeMint takes the floor, again, to discuss America’s problems, energy crises, home loan mortgages, deficit spending, national debt. He forgets that prior to the Bush Administration, there were budget surpluses, cheaper oil, low gas prices, and a booming economy. I wonder how many votes he made in the past seven years that contributed to the crisis he now uses to oppose PEPFAR. Roll Call is reporting that Sen. DeMint is also in hot water with his Republican colleagues for his stall tactics on PEPFAR, a bill the President is "deeply committed to" seeing passed. Roll Call says,

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) went
into damage-control mode Tuesday as his GOP colleagues complained that
his stalling tactics on the Senate floor have gone too far. After
demanding — and then missing — a Friday vote on President Bush’s global
AIDS program, DeMint used the Republicans’ weekly policy lunch to
explain his position but stopped short of an apology, his office

Sen. DeMint proposes an amenmdnet to reduce the amount of the bill from $50 billion as is currently proposed, to $35 billion, the amount the Congressional Budget Office estimates PEPFAR can absorb and move into PEPFAR countries.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) speaks in support of DeMint Amendment to reduce spending, stating that he supports a bold increase, but that spending this much money in developing countries is unwise. Sessions, quoting Sir Elton John, says that politiicans should make sure that the money is spent wisely, then reads a list of recent spending bills passed by Congress.

These arguments ring hollow. We apend $10-12 Billion a month in Iraq, for six years, and will be there for at least two more. The U.S. has given tax cuts to its wealthiest citizens, bailed out Wall Street investment firms, and have given financial incentives to oil companies at the same time they are making record prices and manipulating markets.

The question before the Congress is not which piece of the pie won’t get funded, it is whether or not we believe AIDS is a problem worthy of our attention as a global leader. If it is, then the bill deserves support – flawed as it is.

Sen. Biden indicates that they are hoping to wrap this up, and moves that the Vitter Amendment be passed, which it was by a voice vote. The Vitter Amendment establishes an Inspector General for PEPFAR, differing slightly from an amendment for an IG defeated yesterday.

Sen. Sessions resumes speaking about people he’s met from Africa with AIDS and how moved he was.He again cites Elton John and the importance of spending the money wisely. That would require listening to people about what is really happening on the ground and not loading the bill with ideological baggage that has proven not to work, like abstinence-only earmarks, but its too late for that Sen. Sessions.

4:40 p.m. Sen. Biden moves to allow a new Sessions Amendment on blood swafety to be agreed to under Unanimous Consent, and it was.

BEAKING NEWS — This substitute amendment removes an effort by Sen. Sessions to change language in the bill lifting the ban on HIV positive people travelling to the US. According to sources close to the negotiations it appears that an agreement has been reached and the travel ban will be lifted in the Senate Bill. The House will have to agree to the Senate version before the ban is actually lifted.

The ban prohibited travel to the US by any HIV+ person without a waiver and comes as especially good news to one reader who wrote earlier today following the debate online from the United Kingdom. A 24 year old HIV+ man spearated from his partner because of the ban, he wrote,

It’s been a nightmare thinking that I might never get to see my partner
again, with his job not permitting him to travel often, and me not
being allowed in the country to visit him, it means our relationship is
suffering. I also dream about seeing a yellow taxi for the first time, and all the other American sights I see on British TV everyday. I’ve never felt so discriminated against and it pains me to be seperated from the man I love. My close friends all
travelled to the states recently and all I could do was cry alone
knowing they were all free to visit the same country my partner lives
in and see all the fantastic things in America that we see in films and
the media. I won’t go on, this is such an emotional time for me right now, I just want to visit my partner.

Sen. Biden announced there will be a series of four votes with limited debate on each starting at 5:00 p.m. and that they expect the bill to be wrapped up at that time.

5:00 p.m. Sen. Gregg (R-NH) speaks to his amendment to put an independent Inspector General in PEPFAR. I thought there was a voice vote on an IG earlier, so I’ll have to sort those out.

The Gregg Amendment to establish an indpendent Inspector General for PEPFAR was defeated with 51 votes, and 44 votes .

5:30 p.m. Sen. Kyl speaks to his amendment to force $10 billion dollars to be spent in the fifth year, as debated yesterday and detailed above. Sen. Lugar rises to oppose and argues that we should "retain flexibility" to ramp up spending in the most effective way. Sen. Biden also argues for for "rational ramping up" of the program. Sen. Kyl’s amendment could result in significantly curtailed monies being available for appropriations in the fifth year because of the amount of time it will take to ramp up programs in the first few years.

The Kyl Amendment was defeated with 67 votes against and 28 votes in favor.

5:49 p.m. Sen. DeMint speaks to his amendment to reduce to $35 billion (the CBO estimate of what can be spent effectively) the amount authorized to be appropriated to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in developing countries during the next five years. DeMint continues to use the housing and economic crises created by policies he supported as an excuse to reduce the amount of money being spent to contribute to the global fight against AIDS. Sen. Lugar urges the Senate to oppose the amendment. Sen. Biden reminds the Senate that the program is not starting from zero dollars, the baseline the CBO used, but instead funneling money into already well established programs.

The DeMint amendment was defeated with 63 votes against and 32 votes in favor.

6:10 p.m.  Senators began speaking for a few minutes of debate (er, reading talking points) and the deal is done.

PEPFAR is passed with 80 votes in favor and 16 votes opposed.

Congratulations on Passage!

Rewire has made no secret of its disappointment at how the bill was negotiated, with such early promise to make minor fixes that would have honored the indpendent reports to Congress about PEPFAR’s first five years of experience.  Subtlety is not my strong suit.

While the Senators wrap-up with their platitudes and self-congratulatory comments about "bi-partisanship", I’d like to say a quick thanks to the dozens of public health experts who have written with us throughout the past few months on this issue.

The fact that abstinence-only requirements have been increased to 50 percent is one of the most significant disappointments because it continues a string of votes by the Democratic Majority, that give credence to programs that are proven failures, complicate US global AIDS policy in terms of our ability to work with other international efforts, and are recognized by American parents as being failures for their own children. That is why many states have rejected federal abstinence-only dollars. But Congress continues to make votes to support failed abstinence-only policies at home and abroad, thinking somehow it will make them appealing to social conservatives.

The failure by negotiators to follow recommendations to integrate reproductive health and HIV services for women and girls, the codification of discrimination through an ill-advised conscience clause, the inability to see the need to explicitly address the needs of marginalized populations like young people, sex workers, drug users, are all huge disappointments. It is a shame that a progressive majority could not stand up for these common sense policies and force the minority to accept a bill that reflected the majority, as happened in 2003 when the GOP was in control and PEPFAR was first passed.

Having noted all of this, congratulations are in order for those who have worked to bring this bill to a successful conclusion.  The money is important, just not the only thing that makes a difference in preventing the spread of HIV.

PEPFAR will make a huge difference in the lives of many people. We hope that as it does, advocates will speak out on the issues of abstinence failures, sexual and reproductive health issues, and marginalized populations in such a way that will never again allow smart public health strategies to be compromised for ideology. It is important that if anything is marginalized moving forward, it is the ossification of far-right ideologues in Congress and the Democrats that allow them to dictate policy on these most fundamental of human issues.

The post Tracking PEPFAR in the Senate — PEPFAR Approved Despite Flaws; Deal to Lift HIV Travel Ban Reached! appeared first on Rewire.

DeMint Breaks Senate Agreement on PEPFAR Debate Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:24:42 +0000 Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) took advantage of leverage far-right negotiators acquired as PEPFAR negotiations have been mishandled, and violated Senate protocol to push his ideological misinformation about abortion.

The post DeMint Breaks Senate Agreement on PEPFAR Debate appeared first on Rewire.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) late today broke with Senate agreements that limited amendments and issues to be discussed during the Senate debate on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The issue DeMint violated protocol for? Abortion — which as we’ve written on this site since March, has absolutely nothing to do with PEPFAR.

But the issue has very effectively cowed the Democratic majority and some AIDS advocates who have ignored everything they know to be true on the ground in PEPFAR countries, and about public health, in order to get more money. Even if it means accpeting legislation they know will be less effective in slowing the spread of HIV.

Listening to DeMint speak on the Senate floor would have easily led casual observers to believe that PEPFAR was really about supporting China’s One Child Policy, something we have written in opposition to on this site.

DeMint is attempting to apply Kemp-Kasten to the PEPFAR funds that go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Kemp-Kasten is a law that prohibits foreign aid funding for any organization that,
as determined by the President
, “supports or participates in the
management of a program of coercive abortion of involuntary sterilization.”

The Global Fund limits its spending to fighting the three diseases in its name and has never spent one penny of its funding on abortion, regardless of which country the money comes from. Audits
conducted by the Global Fund, including yearly audits by the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, have never reported any links between the Global
Fund and abortion services in recipient countries, according to a memo released by the Global Fund and obtained by Rewire.

Throughout the process of reauthorization, Rewire has repeatedly urged negotiators not to accept the political frames placed on PEPFAR by the far-right. Our expert writers have detailed modest changes to the reauthorization that would improve prevention efforts by dealing honestly with issues of sexual transmission and reprodcutive health. We’ve encouraged Democrats to stand up for imperical evidence and experience from PEPFAR’s first five years, in the face of moralizing and ideology from the far-right minority.

Negotiators have ignored these pleas from public health experts writing with us, and have continually trusted negotiators from the far-right to act in good faith, selling out public health strategies for increased dollars.

The negotiations have been so successful that a bill that completely removed failed abstinecne-only provisions at the outset, has seen those provisions not only added back in, but increased from 33 percent to 50 percent, with new onerous reporting requirements to Congress. These negotiations have failed to address many improvements in PEPFAR as outlined by the World Health Organization, Institutes of Medicine or General Accounting Office.

In fact, the only thing that has happened during the negotiations on Capitol Hill is that the bill has slowly become more ideological, and thus, based on the evidence from the first five years, potentially less effective. Now, even the very tenuous agreements between lead negotiators on both sides have been violated, shockingly, by the very people the sexual and reproductive health community suggested from the start would not negotiate in good faith. Democrats in Congress seem disappointed, surprised even, as they now scramble for a strategy to finish work on the bill this week and prevent more damage being done by ideologues. In truth, they just want this bill off their plate, given the housing and energy crises crashing down around them.

More amendments will be considered throughout the day on Tuesday, and there is no assurance from whip offices of reliable vote counts on many of them.

While there are parliamentary strategies that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will use to prevent the most egregious of the amendments from passing, the fact of the matter is that these negotiations have been mishandled from the start by giving too much ground to far-right ideologues. The right-wing ideologues have taken a good bill crafted with the leadership of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) before he died, made it worse, and are using the leverage negotiators have given them throughout the process to shape the bill in their image.

The majority party remains silent and ineffective, while some AIDS advocates are chilling champagne and picking out (RED) colored glasses to wear to the Rose Garden Ceremony, seemingly unconcerned about ineffective abstinence-only requirements, the need for women to obtain HIV and reproductive health services in the same location, and the fact that PEPFAR is becoming even less helpful to marginalized populations, something many observers didn’t think was possible.

The post DeMint Breaks Senate Agreement on PEPFAR Debate appeared first on Rewire.

Fix PEPFAR Now to Prevent HIV Infections, Save Lives Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:38:01 +0000 The Senate is moving closer to a vote on PEPFAR, but there is still time to fix the bill allowing the work horse of prevention to pull the cart of treatment, lightening the load by reducing the number of people infected. Congress has burdened the horse with ideology, and put the cart in front.

The post Fix PEPFAR Now to Prevent HIV Infections, Save Lives appeared first on Rewire.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is moving toward a cloture vote in the Senate, a vote that will determine whether the $50 billion reauthorization lives or dies. That same life or death question applies to millions of people in Africa, and comparing actual life or death in Africa to the political legacy of President Bush, as many people see PEPFAR as his greatest achievement, is appalling. Doubly so when the politicians and mainstream media refuse to demand fixes to PEPFAR’s problems. Like the rest of President Bush’s legacy, PEPFAR, as successful as it has been in part, is a go-it-alone strategy that has alienated much of the rest of the world’s public health community.

The reality is this: as successful as PEPFAR has been getting life-saving treatment to nearly two million people, it has failed to slow the infection rate because it has been hampered by unnecessary ideological restrictions. For every two people who receive treatment, five are newly infected with HIV, according to a letter from leading public health advocates circulating on Capitol Hill.

The current legislation will not change that.

At that rate of infection, fiscal conservatives like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) are right to question the amount of money being spent and if it makes sense, because unless you stem the infection rate, no matter how many people get treated there will always be more than twice as many who don’t. Unless the bill is fixed to eliminate ideological provisions, touted by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that have hampered PEPFAR’s prevention efforts in its first five years, and promise more of the same if the current bill passes, PEPFAR will not be as successful in fighting HIV in Africa as it could be.

Unfortunately, that is not the heart of Sen. Kyl’s objections. He and other fiscally-conservative Republicans who’ve been blocking the bill have taken some heat in editorials recently for standing in the way of "the greatest foreign policy achievement since the Marshall Plan," according to PEPFAR supporters quoted in a Wall Street Journal editorial. Given the continued infection rates and failure to address PEPFAR’s flaws to turn the tide, the comparison to the Marshall Plan could only be accurate if Europe were still in shambles.

The Las Vegas Sun writes,

A small group of Republican senators, though, is spoiling the momentum
by arguing that the legislation costs too much and includes money for
unrelated poverty programs.

Poverty is indeed related to the spread of HIV and anyone who doesn’t get that yet isn’t paying attention. Poverty is at the heart of why prevention efforts are so challenging and must be changed, and why putting treatment ahead of prevention is the proverbial cart-before-horse problem. They must work together, and only prevention can ultimatley lessen the burden of treatment.

We should all celebrate the two million lives with us today that otherwise would not be because of PEPFAR treatment. The stark realities of those lives are documented beautifully in a special exhibition, Access to Life, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, sponsored by The Global Fund on AIDS. The photos tell the story of people from every imaginable walk of life, mostly women, often young, always on the margins — who because of treatment are alive today, working, raising families, educating others about HIV/AIDS.

Every Member of Congress should be forced to visit this exhibit before voting on PEPFAR, because as much as it speaks to the life-saving power of treatment, the exhibition also speaks truth about the need to set ideology aside in favor of reality-based education and prevention efforts, now. Had ideology not stood in our way for the first 25 years of the AIDS pandemic, many of these people might never have been infected in the first place. Prevention is and always will be the key to fighting HIV.

Christianity Today, yesterday lamenting the delays, wrote this,

Jon Kyl, the junior senator from Arizona, pretty much has sterling
conservative credentials and a "solidly conservative voting record" in
the words of the Almanac of American Politics.

So what is his beef with
the reauthorization of PEPFAR, perhaps the most relatively untarnished
legacy program of the Bush administration?

Certainly, sticker shock and mission creep are legit concerns. But here’s some op-ed commentary, published in the Tuscon Citizen:

Yet despite the program’s widespread support and irrefutable
success, Kyl and a handful of Republicans think the price tag of $50
billion over five years is too high. It would be one thing for legislators thing to balk at expanding a
program that had not delivered its intended results, but quite another
to stop one that works.

The Baltimore Sun said,

Republican leaders must rein in the conservative flank of their party
and put lives before votes. Otherwise, the president’s biggest
achievement abroad may come undone, and millions of children will
suffer the dire consequences

Most of these editorials also referenced that Bush needed PEPFAR to be passed before leaving for the G-8 Summit in Japan last week. That was great, if unsuccessful, spin and most people recognize that the agreements at the G-8 did not hinge on PEPFAR. In fact, as Jill Sheffield notes from the G-8 Summit, once again the world’s wealthiest nations continue to disappoint with regard to HIV:

Related language
in the whole health section of the final G-8 Communiqué is weak and

"G-8 will take concrete steps to work toward improving
the link between HIV/AIDS activities and sexual and reproductive health
and voluntary family planning programs, including preventing mother-to-child
transmission, and to achieve the MDGs by adopting a multi-sectoral approach
and by fostering community involvement and participation." Really,
couldn’t they have done better than "work toward improving"?

While the editorial writers have part of the PEPFAR story right, that there are conservative politicians putting roadblocks in the way of solid public health policy, they have completely missed out on the story of PEPFAR’s well documented problems and the fixes that are necessary. Rewire has been covering those problems extensively since negotiations began, noting that it is not just the fiscally conservative wing of the GOP that is causing delays, but the social conservative wing as well, insisting on ideological provisions like failed abstinence-only requirements, and using completely irrelevant issues like abortion to gain negotiating advantage over squeamish Democrats. These tactics have complicated negotiations and will prevent improvements to prevention efforts. At least the fiscal conservatives aren’t pretending they care about HIV/AIDS as the ideologues try to do, while ignoring public health realities.

But the PEPFAR spin-fest has been a bipartisan affair. The Democratic Majority has shirked its oversight responsibility to learn from the first five years of PEPFAR and improve efforts by applying proven public health strategies. Instead, they have acted more like a minority, allowing the negotiations to be handled between the fiscal and social conservative wings of the GOP in an effort to avoid dealing with social issues during an election year.

But even at this late hour, because of fixes required on the treatment side of the bill, it is possible for Congress to improve PEPFAR in order to slow the infection rate as well, which in the long term, could mean less money required for treatment once the spread of the disease is slowed.

Global public health advocates at the American Jewish World Service, Center for Health and Gender Equity, International Women’s Health Coalition, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US clearly articulate these improvements as:

  • Abolish arbitrary funding guidelines. In a 2007 report, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended removing the current PEPFAR requirement that one-third of prevention funds be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs. The Senate bill ignores the findings of this congressionally-mandated study and findings from the government’s own Accountability Office (GAO) about the ineffectiveness of this approach. The current bill calls for spending at least fifty percent of prevention funds designed to halt the sexual transmission of HIV, in countries with generalized epidemics, only on abstinence and faithfulness programs. PEPFAR recipients that do not meet this requirement must justify their programmatic decisions through an onerous reporting requirement to Congress, potentially facing defunding. Every individual needs a range of information and services to protect him or herself against HIV, and public health experts on the ground must be able to determine the best mix of prevention programming for their own communities. As it stands, their hands are tied by policies from Washington.

  • Support prevention strategies that reach the largest number of people. In most regions, the number of new infections is growing most rapidly among women and adolescents, primarily through sexual transmission. These two groups are more likely to use family planning and other reproductive health services than any other segment of the population, and would be better equipped to protect themselves from HIV if their access to reproductive health services and education was expanded. The U.S. government concluded that integrating family planning with HIV prevention and treatment services could double the effectiveness of programs to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to infants by expanding women’s choices about pregnancy and childbearing. Recent studies suggest that upwards of 90 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women in countries such as Uganda and South Africa have unmet need for integrated family planning and HIV services. However, the current bill before the Senate fails to call for or even acknowledge the need to strengthen critical linkages between family planning and reproductive health services and HIV prevention efforts.

  • Remove the unconscionable “conscience clause.” The 2003 PEPFAR legislation contains a provision that enables organizations receiving U.S. funding to pick and choose the prevention and treatment services they wish to provide. Millions of dollars go to organizations to provide prevention services, even though they refuse to discuss the potential of condoms or other contraceptives in preventing the spread of HIV. As abstinence and partner reduction programs have outpaced programs that enable individuals to have all the information they need to prevent HIV, the law stands in the way of effective use of resources. The Senate bill takes this bad policy and makes it worse by extending the so-called “conscience clause” to organizations that provide care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS, their families and their communities. This provision paves the way for taxpayer-funded discrimination based on “moral” and religious grounds leaving it wide open to refuse care to someone based on their religion, how they got infected or any other basis. The refusal clause is another damaging provision that flies in the face of good public health practice.

  • Eliminate the prostitution pledge. Current law requires groups fighting HIV/AIDS overseas to pledge their opposition to prostitution and sex trafficking before receiving U.S. money. Sex workers are among the most marginalized people in every country and often lack access to social and health support systems. Prevention programs that have reached sex workers through first building trust have yielded dramatic reductions in HIV infections among these populations. Some continue to believe that having organizations sign such a pledge will help end prostitution, but in reality, the opposite may be true. According to numerous reports, the pledge has led to further alienation of already-stigmatized groups and given free rein to police and resulted in further discrimination against women in sex work. Instead of reducing dependence on sex work, the policy is driving sex workers under ground and away from the non-governmental organizations and health workers best poised to help them and to prevent HIV.

This bill will set the policy for the United State’s global HIV/AIDS programs. As the cloture vote approaches, and assuming it passes, there will still be opprotunities to set better policy on how we spend $50 billion over the next five years. There are concerns on both sides of the aisle, and the Senate should take those issues on, vote on them, and pass a bill that has the greatest impact in saving lives.

The post Fix PEPFAR Now to Prevent HIV Infections, Save Lives appeared first on Rewire.

Global Gag Rule Poses Moral Challenge for U.S. HIV Funding Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:00 +0000 Faith-based organizations representing a broad spectrum of religions call on our government to reauthorize PEPFAR without ideological restrictions on funding.

The post Global Gag Rule Poses Moral Challenge for U.S. HIV Funding appeared first on Rewire.

This article was originally published at On the Issues Magazine.

The pending reauthorization of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief, commonly called PEPFAR, is a clear challenge for our
government to demonstrate its commitment to human dignity and life.

PEPFAR would be expanded dramatically by legislation, S 2731,
now before the Senate and already passed by the U.S. House of
Representatives (and with the long name of "The Tom Lantos and Henry J.
Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008, H.R. 5501").

Funding would be tripled to $50 billion over the next five years.
While the increased funding is a tremendous step forward, the House
version also contains ideological restrictions that will prevent the
funds from most effectively containing the spread of HIV by blocking
the participation of family planning programs.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
and our partners in the interfaith community are urging the Senate to
hear the voices of people of faith on the issue of AIDS relief. These
are people from diverse traditions who share common principles of
justice and compassion and the belief that we have a moral responsibility
to help the vulnerable and the sick to the full extent of our ability.

Simply put, we want PEPFAR to be reauthorized and we welcome the
increased funds — but we want language restricting the participation
of family planning organizations to be removed.

This language requires that organizations must comply with the
global gag rule — the requirement that foreign organizations receiving
U.S. funding must not provide abortion counseling or services or
conduct advocacy on abortion policy. We believe that an ethical policy
will support the best and most flexible approaches possible to contain
the spread of HIV. Experience shows that involving family planning
organizations will ensure the greatest level of access to information
and services for women and girls.

We also are concerned by an onerous reporting provision in the bill
that would require Congress to be informed when countries with
generalized epidemics fall below 50 percent of funds spent on
abstinence and fidelity programs. Instead of promoting programs that
allow for flexibility and are tailored to the needs of individual
communities, the new reporting policy will restrict delivery of
comprehensive and integrated information.

Those involved in our community response on PEPFAR include 26
Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, ecumenical and
interfaith agencies and bodies. We are actively reaching out to our constituencies to underscore that this issue involves our faith commitments, including our commitment to action for social justice.

HIV and AIDS have had devastating consequences throughout the
developing world – consequences that can be prevented by empowering the
most vulnerable populations with proven prevention strategies.

The United States launched PEPFAR in 2003 as the largest investment
ever made by any nation to combat a single disease. PEPFAR has
successfully brought AIDS treatment, care and HIV prevention to
millions of people who would not otherwise have had services. But
constraints on prevention and care are contrary to the authentic moral
concerns of the American public for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. The
religious and religiously affiliated organizations opposing these
constraints have pointed out that they directly affect women, youth,
and socially marginalized groups – those who increasingly bear the
greatest burden of this pandemic and who often receive medical care
mainly or only from family planning organizations.

It is our moral duty to challenge our government to adopt the most
effective, humane and just policy to contain the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
without ideological restrictions and constraints.

Related Posts

And check out all of Rewire’s PEPFAR coverage here

The post Global Gag Rule Poses Moral Challenge for U.S. HIV Funding appeared first on Rewire.

Managing the Muddle: Sex and PEPFAR Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:40:21 +0000 PEPFAR's "anti-prostitution" pledge favors strategies that are penal in character over health-based interventions that reach out to educate sex workers.

The post Managing the Muddle: Sex and PEPFAR appeared first on Rewire.

Many points have already been raised about the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that focused on how the funding initiative misses out on key issues: the vulnerability of girls and how marriage is not a guarantee of protection from HIV infection. PEPFAR's unabashed funding requirements attached to abstinence, faithfulness programs, as well as the "anti-prostitution loyalty oath," makes it an obvious target of criticism, mainly because countless studies worldwide (and in the US) have shown the ineffectiveness of such strategies.

Getting to the heart of the matter, a series of forums organized at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto from April 1-2, 2008, offered an opportunity to tackle the core of the conundrum: sex and our ways of viewing sexuality. Oishik Sircar, Women's Rights Fellow of the International Sexual and Reproductive Health Program of the Faculty of Law and lead organizer of the forum aptly entitled, "Confusing Conflations," invited the participants to explore the issues of sex and trafficking and how, despite their constant overlap and connection, they are hardly identical issues.

The first day included a screening of "Tales of the Night Fairies," by acclaimed Director, Shohini Ghosh. The film featured women from the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanyay Committee or the Durbar Women's Collaborative Committee), that stemmed from The Shonagachi HIV/AIDS Intervention Project (SHIP). By featuring the lives of women in sex work, the feature grapples with the complex issues around consent, agency and exploitation in prostitution. On their own terms and in their own voice, the real women (and one male sex worker) featured in the film challenge the usual "images" of prostitutes (especially women) as one-dimensional characters, helpless victims in need of "rescue."

Prof. Kamala Kempadoo, of York University Toronto, pointed out how there are now a myriad of recognized views about sex and sexuality that challenge the traditional binary of "good" and "bad" sex so that the "acceptability" of sexual relations is no longer solely framed as an issue of whether it happens within or outside marital relations.

In the case of prostitution, one position which has gained prominence is the struggle for the recognition of "sex workers' rights." Coining the position of collectives of sex workers as "rights" has led to profound interrogations of the subject of rights, women as well as specific classes of women, having for a long time been excluded from the realm of rights claiming.

Yet Prof. Kempadoo also acknowledged that the category of "rights" (especially legal rights) has its built-in limitations and doesn't preclude questions about serious issues of alienation which has often been pointed out as more heightened in sex work, because of the place sexuality occupies in many societies. Because many societies attach a gamut of beliefs around identity, relationships and at the same time, stigma around the sexual, "sex workers rights" isn't really a comprehensive articulation of the issue of prostitution in as much as it is a strategic claim.

Prof. Ashwini Tambe, of the Women and Gender Studies Institute and Department of History, University of Toronto meanwhile challenged the participants to question prevalent thinking about prostitution and trafficking in absolutist terms. The usual way of representing the positions vis a vis trafficking and prostitution has not only led to conflating one with the other but also tends to reinforce the discourse as solely about being anti/pro legalization, anti/pro prostitution/trafficking.

Within social movements, while many feminists still stand divided about the legal questions about prostitution and trafficking, there is still admittedly a huge difference between the position of "traditional" and religious-based positions on prostitution and feminist ones.

One more question which emerged from the discussion was whether a big part of the debates within social movements has to do with unquestioned notions about the law, particularly the use of criminal law to "solve" social problems. As useful as penal law strategies have proven in making that initial step towards the recognition of "Violence against Women" (VAW) as wrongdoing, what is the net effect of exclusively invoking the coercive (police) power of the state in the context of rights protection?

For the participants of the forum, many of whom were law students, the discussion that followed proved to be a valuable source of insights about the limitations of legal categories and strategies as well as the many paradoxes of legal theory and practice, in relation to the construction of harm in the context of and alongside sexual acts. Law students were ready to admit how their concern for trafficked women in prostitution usually arises out of an idea and image of "victimhood" that is somehow constructed and reinforced by law.

Indeed, while the notion of a "victim" in law structures liability, in practice it also plays out as the requisite of "legitimacy" when women seek and claim protection. In other words, law shapes what women should be (as victims) worthy of protection.

This whole idea of "worthiness" (in making claims and seeking protection and assistance) also plays out in familiar schisms between some "child rights" and "women's rights," positions. This is also seen in the context of anti-trafficking campaigns which privilege "child trafficking" and ends up serving as the dominant image to represent all experiences (including women's experiences) in trafficking and prostitution.

PEPFAR, in accordance with its worldview of sex, divides up the rest of the world's civil society groups doing anti-trafficking work into the pro/anti prostitution. Often compared to the "Global Gag Rule" or the Mexico Policy which precludes USAID funded organizations doing family planning work to from having anything to do with addressing abortion, PEPFAR's far reaching consequences goes beyond the selective distribution of funding in HIV/AIDS programs.

In the short feature, "Taking the Pledge" by the Network for Sex Work Projects, groups working on massive education and empowerment campaigns within sex workers networks from Thailand, Cambodia, India, and Brazil spoke about the adverse impacts of the US "Anti-Prostitution Pledge" embedded in PEPFAR. In each case, groups offering services which were most accessible to sex workers were eventually denied funding because their position on prostitution was not up to PEPFAR's standards.

The "anti-prostitution" oath not only tends to push the agenda of prohibition vis a vis prostitution, but also favours strategies that are categorically "law focused" (the passage of anti-trafficking and sex trafficking law) and penal in character, criminal prosecution over health based interventions that reach out to educate sex workers. While addressing any harm logically entails penal law, the construction of "harm" in this case, goes well beyond listing what "trafficking" entails alongside stringent penalties. PEPFAR also foists upon its aid recipients, a categorization of the worthy and unworthy. As "US foreign" policy, it adds another whole dimension to local politics in the South around trafficking and prostitution. The end result of course is the exclusion of sex workers from the South from the recipient list of program interventions. Within PEPFAR's framework, sex workers from the South are clearly the undeserving and unworthy.

The post Managing the Muddle: Sex and PEPFAR appeared first on Rewire.

PEPFAR Politics vs. Public Health Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:39:38 +0000 As expected, the House wrapped itself in a big red bi-partisan bow when discussing PEPFAR, and Rep. Steny Hoyer said the bill shouldn't fall prey to "political sport." Here's hoping this weekend's Final Four is more competitive than the PEPFAR reauthorization ever was.

The post PEPFAR Politics vs. Public Health appeared first on Rewire.

During the House debate to reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer praised the $50 billion effort saying that global AIDS is too large an issue to “fall prey to political sport.” In sports there are winners and losers, but PEPFAR had win-win potential. Hoyer went on to say the bill “will not make everyone happy.”

The issue here should not be about being happy or providing comfort to politicians to skirt around real life issues that will determine if someone can protect themselves against HIV. Despite all the flowery language about bipartisanship and compromise, key issues that should have been addressed in PEPFAR fell prey to political sport, and people will lose not just a game, but their lives.

This game came at the expense of good public health policies. Why? Because policy makers would rather avoid fundamental issues like human sexual relations, even though they are central to confronting the HIV pandemic. Everyone knows you can't play sports unless you address sound fundamentals first.

The political sport ends up looking like this:

In the name of reducing HIV infections, the majority inbounds a consensus bill that includes support for voluntary contraceptive services for HIV positive women, in case a woman decides she doesn’t want to become pregnant again. The GOP ideologues then steal the issue with hyperbolic claims that abortion is being promoted as a way to prevent HIV. They shoot, they score, as Democrats (heavily favored to win due to their majority status) watch helplessly. Democrats tense up and start to play nervous.

From the stands public health experts are shouting that by enabling funds for HIV prevention education and services, including testing, to go to family planning providers, we can reach more people at risk of HIV – helping to slow the spread. Their shouts are backed up by facts that no one on the floor seems to care about.

The GOP takes the ball away from the Democrats and again asserts that providing HIV prevention through family planning services is really about expanding abortion. Like basketball before the shot clock, conservative ideologues just keep tossing the abortion issue back and forth even though it has nothing to do with PEPFAR, leaving Democratic leadership playing defense. Even some of the Democrats' fans, you know the types, the rock stars that always get court side seats, turn around to tell the public health experts from the stands to just be quiet and enjoy the game.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) gets the ball and moves it up the court, working through the legislative process to enable HIV/AIDS education, counseling and testing activities to be provided by a larger group of health care providers, particularly because part of the mission of the reauthorization is to expand services. Her shot is blocked by those claiming that to maintain the delicate compromise, we cannot talk about the issue on the House floor, and she, and her good efforts, are sidelined. Another last minute shot on the floor comes from Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), suggesting we shouldn’t limit access to HIV prevention services by enacting a strangle hold where individuals can receive these services. Again, his shot is blocked by those who say, in the name of compromise, nothing can be changed.

The slam dunk would have been to simply, honestly and straightforwardly acknowledge that HIV is primarily a sexually transmitted infection. To slow the spread of the infection, we need to reach people where we can – to encourage testing and to provide the range of tools to protect themselves from HIV.

The obsessed anti-choice Republicans who are supporting this bill spent a lot of time on the House floor indicating there is a moral obligation for the US to continue leadership in this area. Agreed. The moral obligation they didn’t discuss – and don’t support – is that to be truly pro life is to take every action available to prevent the spread of HIV – not only the ones that fit into their personal definition of morality, but in the public health framework of what works. That includes better access to prevention, education and contraception for women through integrated HIV/family planning services.

No doubt PEPFAR will continue to do good – but the question remains, why add constraints that make it impossible to do more, prevent more infections, and protect more lives with the resources available?

As Rep. Hoyer said, PEPFAR shouldn't have fallen prey to political sport. What he didn't say was that it had before the game even got started. The fix was in. The public health experts in the cheap seats left the stadium hoping the team can do better next time and vowing to keep cheering them on with evidence, stats and real world experience that supports their case. The celebrity fans left unconcerned about the outcome of the game so long as they keep getting those cool front row seats.

Fighting AIDS is About More Than Money … Read RHRealityCheck's extensive PEPFAR coverage.

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Marriage Is No Protection Against HIV Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:43:21 +0000 For women in Africa, marriage is no protection against HIV. Their challenge is how to start negotiating for condom use 20 years into their marriages.

The post Marriage Is No Protection Against HIV appeared first on Rewire.

Those who profess a belief in monogamy will not necessarily remain faithful to their partners. While those who have extramarital affairs give different reasons as to why they do what they do, a recent study has just reaffirmed women's worst fears, that men do indeed have affairs outside of marriage.

We've always known this, but now a study has now been done to support our intuition. If the findings released late last year at the fifth Africa population conference are anything to go on, you might want to reflect on when you last asked your husband to use a condom.

The study, conducted in the Mbeya region of Tanzania and in Nigeria, highlighted what most women might find to be obvious: that most married men do have extramarital affairs. What makes it scary is that Mbeya is a region that has the highest HIV/AIDs prevalence rate in Tanzania, twice the national average. During this study, 70% of sex workers tested in Mbeya were found positive.

The respondents in the study were asked whether or not they had had sex outside marriage. It was found that men who live in urban areas are likely to be involved in extramarital affairs due to availability of hiding places, said the lead researcher. When I heard this fact I nodded to the fact that there are indeed many hiding places in the urban areas, especially in our towns, as opposed to the rural area where word goes round very fast if one is spotted "walking" with another man's woman. That means that the risk of getting caught in your village is higher than in Nairobi.

Let me also note another interesting fact the study found: a man who has premarital sex is likely to be involved in extramarital affairs after he gets hitched. According to another study done by the Guttmacher Institute and the Africa Population and Health Research Center, half of fifteen- to nineteen-year-olds in Uganda have had sex, even though more than eight out of ten adolescents think that both women and young men should remain virgins until they marry. If less premarital sex means fewer extramarital affairs later on, great. But my thinking is that everyone needs to get information on condom use as early as possible, no matter what their intentions are. That way condoms will be commonly used the same way one takes a pill to prevent pregnancy.

Dr. Oyediran Kola, who carried out the Nigerian study, also had the same results with an indication that there is a correlation between first sexual encounter to extra marital sex.

Their conclusion was that efforts should be directed at empowering married women to negotiate for condom use in marriage. The challenge is now for married women to negotiate for safer sex especially if their husbands are having extramarital affairs. How do you start negotiating for condom use 20 years into a marriage?

The highest number of extramarital affairs, according to both studies, occurs in the 40-49 and the 30-39 age group. Its no wonder that there is a website dedicated to philanderers to help married men and women cope with the pain of being cheated on.

The fact that 62% of Kenyan women are HIV positive tells a lot, especially because the rate of infection is higher in married couples, thanks in part to extramarital affairs.

The studies wanted to find out the linkage between men's behavior especially in sexual relationships to the spread of HIV/AIDS. This would be something probably our ministry of planning through the National Council for Population and Development might want to look at to probably give an insight as to why most married women are living with HIV.

This is a dilemma that every African woman and indeed every woman is faced with as the epidemic continues to hold a female face.

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No Room for Orthodoxy in HIV Prevention Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:46:21 +0000 The HIV epidemic in India needs to be fought by accessible testing, lessening stigma, widespread education, and needle exchange programs, but above all, it needs to be fought by a humane and scientific prevention program coming from the government.

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Two couples from the district of Guntur in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India — despite their limited education and conservative upbringing — managed to send out a powerful message to dispel the myths surrounding HIV by opting for pre-marital HIV testing with the support of their families.

One of the young men getting married is a truck driver — believed to be one of the high risk groups in the country for the virus. With ninety percent of the youth in three districts of the region positively inclined to such tests, the future of controlling the virus looks bright — as long as these young people are not stonewalled by conservative community elders when legislation on the subject comes up or the movement for such testing does gain momentum. The NGO involved in the initiative hopes to make pre-marital HIV testing mandatory.

The subject of sex education in schools already has been stonewalled in many parts of the country. The tussle has been narrowed down to the issue of talking about the act itself with children. The recent incident of early adolescent street children in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata molesting a woman in broad daylight like it was a community game or the burning of a twelve-year-old girl by two fourteen-year-old boys because she resisted there attempts at rape are scary enough for parents (if not other stakeholders) to start taking this issue more seriously. Sex education can arm children, adolescents and young adults with information that prepares them to not just be sexually safer and healthy but also to help them deal with the growing awareness of their own sexuality in a responsible manner — and delay their first sexual encounter to a time when they feel both physically and mentally equipped to deal with the consequences.

Any "unorthodox" attempts at dealing with HIV and other STIs or pregnancy and family planning related issues have over the years met with resistance. For instance, several years ago, a movement to introduce condom vending machines for prison inmates of Tihar (the largest prison complex in South Asia and located in the national capital) was enough to rattle many people.

More recently, several agencies have been contemplating making clean syringes available for intravenous drug users (IDUs), considering the risk sharing syringes poses for HIV infection. If the argument here gets reduced to condoning or condemning drug use the price we end up paying will be with more new HIV infections and precious time lost in actually combating the issue.

Changes like these in strategy need to be considered if we don't want to end up taking three steps back for every step forward in dealing with communities on such volatile issues surrounding sexual and reproductive health. The region has already suffered the consequences of sex selection, reflected in the abysmal sex ratio in India, and is a reflection of foot dragging strategies over the past decade and more. And the result? In many districts of the country, there are now fewer than 700 girls for every thousand boys, with a situation not that different to the one in China.

Even tough India found cheer recently in the fact that the actual HIV infections were not as high as estimated in early 2007 by some international agencies. But complacency would be disastrous, since each unaccounted for infection holds the potential of another. And at close to three million people living with HIV the number still is very high.

Information is really at the heart of the solution to prevent any new infections and to give people living with HIV a more fulfilling life inspite of and with the virus. With stigma and discrimination the core obstacles faced by most positive persons and their families, even the idea of getting tested comes with its own set of complications. Violence and ostracism become the social fallouts of this medical condition. Not only do widows of HIV-positive men get through out of their marital homes but children from households with an HIV-positive member have lower enrollment and higher drop out rates. Education should be the first line of defense against the spread of the virus but often educational access is compromised by the virus itself. Besides, for information to reach its intended audience what needs to be kept in mind is the large mass of the illiterate population. And hence dissemination of information through media resources other than the written one becomes absolutely imperative and using local tools like folk theatre, music, cinema, community gatherings, street plays and puppet shows probably would be more popular methods of ensuring attendance and acceptance.

But more than everything else, what is required is support from the government: support to make testing services more accessible for those willing and ensuring that government services themselves are not discriminatory to the infected persons and their families.

The danger with bills like the PEPFAR is that they do find support amidst the more conservative policy planners in the country — which is a dangerous trend when it comes to dealing with issues like HIV/AIDS. For instance, an earlier administration in India actually followed a deliberate policy of shifting focus of AIDS prevention campaigns to sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third going so far as even removing condom advertisements from state-run television networks in the name of decency and to keep in line with their own orthodox policies. The irony is that in India the virus has confined itself to a sexual triangle of poor, male migrant workers, the sex workers they visit and the wives they leave back home. So any bill carrying provisions like the PEPFAR in effect excludes from its group of beneficiaries a substantial portion of the high risk populations in the country.

If HIV has been taken up as one of the most serious concerns of the 21st century, then to deny certain groups access to treatment and funds for treatment is an infringement on basic human rights. Universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment is the immediate need. Access to all kinds of healthcare invariably suffers from bureaucratic hiccups and to have an additional set of prerequisites before the treatment and care can be made available to the target groups is both inhuman and criminal. In its current stage the epidemic calls for streamlining not just government but extra national processes to be able to achieve universal access to lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment, including access to second-line therapies if the fight against HIV has to be won both in terms of time and the number of people it reaches.

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What Kind of Movement Are We? Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:30:20 +0000 As we approach our last chance to improve the PEPFAR reauthorization bill, we must ask ourselves: do we care about claiming a victory on a mediocre piece of legislation and maintaining relationships with Congress, or do we care about taking a principled stand for the needs of people around the world?

The post What Kind of Movement Are We? appeared first on Rewire.

"We have to ask ourselves if we care more about our UN badges or about taking a stand for the needs and rights of people around the world."

Those words are a paraphrase of those spoken by a committed South African activist who was encouraging civil society at the 2006 U.N. General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) AIDS meeting to risk our badges by protesting the disgustingly weak consensus document reached by member nations. (She was successful in getting us to take action. You can read a blog about that protest here.)

I am reminded of her words as I think about how civil society has responded to the PEPFAR reauthorization bill that has now passed both the House and Senate committees and is headed to the floor of both chambers for a vote. I have been shocked over the last few weeks by the number of organizations and prominent individuals who have responded positively, or even neutrally, to the compromise bill. Some who have been through these processes before eagerly remind the more outraged among us that this is how it works: you simply don't make great leaps forward on these issues.

Why have so many of us accepted that the way it has been is the way it has to be? And why wouldn't we exhaust our options before settling? Why are we doing this work if not to demand something other than "business as usual"?

We call ourselves a movement. A movement demands progress; it demands big dreams backed up by big action. And last I checked, a movement does not accept compromise that comes at the price of lives without at least putting up one heck of a fight.

As we approach our last chance to change the PEPFAR reauthorization bill, we must ask ourselves: do we care about claiming a victory on a mediocre piece of legislation (by Congressional standards — it's a horrible piece of legislation by the standards of what is actually needed) and maintaining untainted relationships with Congressional offices, or do we care about taking a principled stand for the needs of people around the world? It is time for our community to face the facts. Not only is this piece of legislation an unacceptable compromise, but that if we so-called advocates do not call it what it is, no one else is going to. If we don't hold lawmakers' feet to the fire, no one else is going to.

When it's time to draw the line in the sand, which side are you on? Are you on the side of a comfortable Washington, D.C. NGO existence that won't push the envelope beyond the agreeable gray area of compromise? Or are you on the side of the billions of people around the world who suffer as a result of (and simultaneously resist) our complacency and tacit complicity in a global system that robs their nations of resources, exploits their labor, prevents access to life-saving medicines and contraceptive supplies, and floods their communities with ideological misinformation about sex and sexuality?

It's time to let go of our delusions about what we continue to permit our world to look like today. It's time that we stand together, knowing that we have let this slide too far, and say in unison: The PEPFAR reauthorization legislation is a sell-out.

You might say I'm overreacting. But give yourself an advocate's reality check. Ask yourself why you do this work – what does it mean for you to be an "advocate"? Then, ask yourself why you are saying that this bill is acceptable (or that it's acceptable for us not to resist it). Maybe you're protecting an organizational position on the issues, Congressional relationships, respectability in the media, or community approval. Or maybe you're protecting your need to believe that the last five years of work to change PEPFAR have paid off.

As the final part of your advocate's reality check, ask yourself what these relationships, this "respectability," approval, or sense of accomplishment are worth if they don't help us challenge the misogynist, racist, nationalist, capitalist, homophobic system that let the AIDS pandemic take hold as it did. Are they worth the lives they cost?

My personal reality check leads me to conclude that it's time to stop deluding ourselves. We need to realize that:

  • An appearance of bi-partisanship is NOT more important than the lives of millions of people separated from us by race, nation, or HIV-status.
  • We will NOT stand by while even the most progressive members of Congress decide to fall into line rather than stand their ground and put up a fight for what's right. We can, and we will, make them accountable for their actions.
  • Money does not solve everything, especially when that money has strings attached, especially when that money ends up lining the pocketbooks of U.S. government contractors and organizations doing the ideological bidding of the Administration, and especially when that money goes to programs that advance U.S. global hegemony.

"Well at least we tried; we'll do better next time" is not something a community caregiver can tell a young man for whom there isn't enough treatment, or a visiting healthcare worker can tell a thirty-year-old woman for whom having another baby may mean death in the face of inadequate healthcare. And it isn't something that we, as a movement, can afford to tell ourselves.

Social change is not accomplished overnight and it is not accomplished through one piece of legislation, but it is also most certainly not accomplished by backing down. If we don't fight this fight here, no one will. If we're not willing to fight back, then our silence will mean death and the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration will not be the only ones to blame.

Having worked through my own reality check, I conclude that it is time to act decisively and aggressively; it is time to commit ourselves to changing this bill before it is signed into law.

If your reality check leaves you where mine has left me, then let's start acting like a movement. Let's stop putting off until tomorrow (a day that, conveniently, never comes) the real change we believe in. Let's do something NOW to change PEPFAR reauthorization. If we don't we will have to admit that we did not do all we could to end the AIDS pandemic, that when push came to shove we weren't willing to put up the fight necessary, and that we let a movement with real potential fizzle because we were too jaded to believe we might be able to accomplish more. I'm not ready to do that. I hope you aren't either.

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First Tuesday Webinars

Next edition: CORPORATE MEMBERSHIPS – What are they and how do you administer them?

Register now for the D6990 Corporate Memberships Webinar on October 3. The fourth in our series of free D6990 First Tuesday webinars starts at 7 PM on Tuesday, October 3. Is your club confused about its ability to offer alternative membership types? Should your club offer Corporate Memberships? What is the purpose and prospective member profile? How should a club set up and offer a corporate or other alternative membership? How are things like dues and attendance accounted for? If your club has been thinking about offering a corporate membership, join in the conversation to discover best practices and how to deal with membership reporting issues. Space is limited to 25. Register via the DaCdb Calendar ( to receive webinar logon instructions. Sign up today!

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Bold “Visionary” 1995

Yes readers, that is indeed Naked Lunch author William Burroughs narrating this soap powder commercial, in a continuation of our “mad mid 90s” theme. This spot was produced by legendary ad agency Leo Burnett of Chicago.

In other news…today’s sad anniversary is even sadder this year with the passing of Chris Cornell, surely the most convincing rock star of the last 25 years. I also heard today that former Guerilla Studios team mate Marvin Slack has died of lung cancer. My deepest condolences to their families and friends.


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Archive for August, 2011

Reliance Industries ropes in Navin Wadhwani to head M&A

August 26, 2011

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), India’s most valued private sector firm, has decided to bring in Navin Wadhwani , ex-managing director at NM Rothschild and Sons (India) Pvt. Ltd, to head its new mergers and Acquisition (M&A) division. Wadhwani will be responsible for setting up a dedicated M&A team for RIL that will most likely take on operations previously headed and managed by Chief Financial Officer Alok Agarwal and Manoj Modi; who led the recent deal between RIL and BP Plc.

Navin Wadhwani comes with 20 years of experience in advising on financial restructuring of electricity and infrastructure based industries. He has overseen many key cross-border M&A deals and will now head he same for Reliance Industries.

Reliance Industries has been growing steadily in terms of size and scale, and keeping up with the pace, the company is looking to acquire more businesses and growing inorganically. It is looking to expand into more diverse areas and effectively utilize its capital assets. Addressing his shareholders at the 2010-11 AGM, Mukesh Ambani, chairman of RIL, quoted, “We are gearing up for the next phase of growth through a combination of our own initiatives and forging new partnerships with leading companies of the world.”

Reliance Industries has been charting numerous significant deals since last one year, including acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services in 2010 that marked its entry into telecom sector, joint ventures with US based investment and technology development firm DE Shaw and Co., acquisition of Bharti Group’s 74% stake in two insurance joint ventures with France’s AXA Group, joint ventures with US based energy majors Chevron, Pioneer and Carrizo for acquiring shale gas assets and its much acclaimed deal with London based energy giant BP plc that is set to bring in one of the largest FDI seen in Indian energy quarter. For the quarter ending June 30th, Reliance Industries touched a pinnacle when it accounted its highest ever quarterly financial performance.

Mukesh Ambani led RIL wins back the title of India’s most valued firm

August 23, 2011

After commanding a market value higher than any other listed company on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has regained its lost standing as India’s most valued company after pushing the short term title holder Coal India Limited back to second position. RIL commanded a market value of Rs. 2, 46,995 crore at 09: 45 hours on the BSE starting this week, a value higher than any other company, while Coal Indian Limited rested at Rs. 2, 44,190 crore during the same time.

Reliance Industries has been the defending champion of the title of India’s most valued firm for a straight four years. Coal India Limited (CIL) and ONGC had been closing down on RIL in terms of market valuation for the past few weeks as RIL stocks were under a lot of pressure and given the two PSUs had been performing well even during the draught spell that hit the markets earlier this month. Following this, RIL slipped to a close second position behind Coal India Limited earlier last week. Reliance almost slipped another level, closing behind ONCG but, nevertheless, it managed to regain the second slot by the time the markets closed last week. However, Coal India’s victory was equally short lived as Reliance Industries regained the top slot early this morning. Trade analysts are now eyeing this bump up closely to ascertain the longevity of the status-quo.

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries is back on an optimistic roll as the company has won its namesake title back. It had acquired this title in the first place by routing ONGC to second position four years ago, and since then, it had maintained the calling exceedingly over the years. Boosting the company’s moral once again, Reliance will be seen tuning up its processes to retain the calling of India’s most valued and biggest private sector firm.

Reliance Retail launches ‘Home Club’ – a Direct Selling initiative

August 17, 2011

Reliance Retail subsidiary Reliance Home Products has launched a door-to-door selling initiative under the name of ‘Home Club’ in an effort to improve the sales of its private brands like Sudz detergent, Amara soaps and Healthy Life food items. Now in its pilot stage, this initiative is eyeing housewives to register with the club and help sell the products in and around their social networks.

The products sold under Home Club initiative will be made available at whole sale prices, in order to exhaust existing inventory and drive demand for more. Consumers will stand a chance to purchase quality products from the house of Reliance at 30% discounts through members who themselves will earn 10% of their sales amount as commission. Such type of Direct Selling has been a popular choice for companies who wish to drive sales and create a customer base for their in-house products.

Retail experience in India has primarily been driven by word of mouth, point of purchase promotions and by way of mass advertising. While these efforts have been around and tested to their full potential, direct selling has surfaced as the latest and one of the more creative ways to market and sell a product at the same time. An initiative as the one taken by Reliance Retail is beneficiary to both the company and its customers. While the company stands to improve the sales of its in-house brand and generate a future demand for the same via personal selling, members, especially housewives, have an opportunity to make quick commission with every sale with minimum amount of investment in terms of time.

Reliance Retail had previously pioneered an effort where it tried to make its products available via its own stores and local grocers. In an improved version of the effort, this initiative hopes to bank on the ‘personal selling’ attribute and the value proposition the products come bearing with the title of Reliance.

Pune to welcome five new Reliance Digital stores

August 11, 2011

Reliance Digital, the multi-brand electronics retail chain, is set to launch five new stores in the city of Pune on 13th August 2011. This is one of the biggest multi-store launches to be carried out by Reliance Digital in the country.

The new Reliance Digital outlets are located in Phoenix Market City Mall, Viman Nagar; Amanora Town Center Mall, Hadapsar; KPCT Mall, Fatima Nagar; Bund Garden, Next to Ruby Clinic and iStore at Phoenix City Mall, Viman Nagar.

Reliance Digital will be offering its customers a horde of special launch offers and assured gifts on occasion of this mega event. Apart from attractive deals in all electronic items, Reliance Digital is giving away free gift vouchers worth Rs. 1000 with every purchase made between 13th and 14th of August at all new stores. It will also host a special contest (at Fatima Nagar and Bund Garden stores only) called the ‘Digital Knockout Challenge’ where customers stand a chance to win free iPad or iPhone. Adding to the festivities will be Bollywood actor Ranvir Singh from ‘Band Baaja Baraat’ fame, who will be present at the new Reliance Digital stores in Viman Nagar and Fatima Nagar on 13th of August at 1 pm and 2:30 pm respectively.

The new stores will follow the template of existing Reliance Digital store format, carrying multitude of brands of CDIT products and solutions ranging from high end LCD and LED televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, home appliances, music systems, gaming consoles and software and IT related accessories, all available at great prices.

About Reliance Digital: Reliance Digital, the value-driven electronics retail chain, is the most popular destinations for purchase of electronics items. Carrying over 4000 different products of 150 brands – both domestic and international – Reliance Digital is a state-of-the-art, one stop shop for all consumer electronic items.

Government gives RIL-BP deal the green flag

August 9, 2011

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has received a go-ahead from the central government for its much acclaimed and anticipated deal with London based energy major BP PLc. The RIL-BP deal will see BP stake a 30 per cent share in 23 oil and gas acreages of Reliance, including RIL’s most commended oil and gas block of KG-D6. This deal spans a length of over 270,000 square kilometers, across 23 oil and gas blocks, making the partnership India’s largest private sector holder of exploration acreage. Following this official sanction, both RIL and BP will work together to concretize the deal efficiently and effectively. RIL, in its official statement, said that it is grateful to the government for granting approval for a deal which will result in the largest foreign investment in the domestic hydrocarbon sector

The deal between RIL and BP will see RIL harvest BP’s technical expertise for productive exploration and development of deep sea reserves while BP will mark its entry into Asia’s second largest energy consuming nation. Since BP is known for its technical dexterity in tapping deep sea exploration blocks, it was the likely partner for RIL in its ambitious pursuit. The limited reserves off the cost of Andhra Pradesh, which carry half the volume of stipulated quantity as established on initial examination, pose a serious challenge to its operator and Reliance hopes to tackle the situation by bringing in the best in the trade to do the needful.

The RIL-BP deal is equally prolific as it reflects the growing power and potential of private players in a sector that has, so far, been dominated by public sector operators. Private operators like RIL are today developing far-reaching measures to reap the most out of every reserve rather than probe around for additional acreage to develop. With concern for energy security now mounting, efforts of players like RIL are reassuring that nation’s reserves are being harnessed to their full potential through the best technical assistance there is.

Energy operators vying for success similar to RIL’s KG D6 block

August 5, 2011

The Krishna – Godavari oil and gas basin, developed by Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), is somewhat of an aspirational pursuit for many energy operators across the country. KG-D6 development has been one of India’s biggest and most complex underwater installation campaigns. One of India’s largest sources of domestic gas for FY-11, RIL’s KG-D6 accounted for almost 35% of the total gas consumption in India. Currently, it caters to the demand from 57 core sector players including fertilizer, power, steel, petrochemicals and refineries.

The 8,100km² KG-DWN-98 / l (KG-D6) block lies off the east coast of Andhra Pradesh in the Bay of Bengal region. The first three discoveries made in this region, namely Dhirubhai-1, Dhirubhai-2 and Dhirubhai-3, have estimated gas reserves of approximately eight trillion cubic feet and, and besides D1 and D3 gas fields, MA oil discovery has proven to be a very substantial one.

Natural gas from Reliance Industries’ KG D6 field is estimated to have rendered Rs. 6,000 crore in savings for the government over the last year, while its fertilizer subsidy bill eased by almost Rs. 3,100 crore. This was a substantial benefit to the power and fertilizer companies, who are the foremost users of natural gas. KG D6 output has saved 32 per cent in fertilizer subsidy after urea making plants shifted from costlier liquid fuels to lighter and more cost effective gas inputs from RIL’s gas fields.

Analysts are of the view that following such large savings by the government the benefits are likely to trickle down to the end consumers. Many companies bid for deepwater assets hoping to experience success similar to that of KG D6, one of India’s most prolific natural resource finds. Often, operators commit much capital and time in developing gas field in hopes of similar result, but the expertise employed at KG D6 has so far been unmatched.

With RIL-BP deal now taking shape, it is likely that the production from the field will augment substantially with BP’s deep sea technical expertise at work.

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries eyes tremendous growth

August 2, 2011

Last week came with encouraging news of Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) earning its highest ever quarterly financial results, with profits reaching as high as 17 per cent. What’s more is that RIL has recently been granted official sanction for its much acclaimed deal with BP and acquisition of Bharti group’s stake in Bharti AXA life and general insurance companies, paving way for a successful fiscal year run.

Topping the success metrics, Reliance saw its first big accomplishment by earning the highest ever quarterly financial performance results for the April-June quarter of 2011. The turnover achieved by India’s largest energy major for the quarter ending on 30th June was Rs. 83, 689 crore – an increase of 37.2% as compared to previous year – and its net profit leveled at Rs. 5,661 crore during the same period, up by 16.7%. Refining business led the success charts, credited to the heavier grades of crude oil which, cheaper than lighter varieties, being processed at RIL’s Jamnagar facilities to push higher margins.

This break-through was followed by sanctioning of RIL’s deal with London based energy major BP Plc by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). RIL-BP deal, signed earlier this February, will see BP stake a 30 per cent share in Reliance’s 23 oil and gas exploration blocks, including its most prolific block off the cost of Andhra Pradesh, the Krishna – Godavari (KG D6) block. This deal will allow Mukesh Ambani led RIL to implement BP’s superior technical assistance in prolific exploration of deep sea oil and gas reserves, especially at a time when government is concerned with ensuring energy security in the country.

Most recently, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday cleared the bid by RIL to buy out Bharti Group’s 74 per cent stake in insurance joint ventures with AXA of France. As Reliance Industries sketches out plans of tapping into the financial services sector of India, a great lead has been achieved in the same following this buyout.

These significant breakthroughs are reflective of the efforts RIL is putting in to churn out thriving and economically benefiting processes.