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Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, over the recess that just concluded, I had a chance to visit South Africa for an Aspen Institute conference to discuss the future of that continent. With so much of the world's attention on Ukraine, as it should be, and the Middle East, as it should be, we often forget the importance of this dynamic and challenging African continent, with nearly one out of five of the world's population--a percentage that will increase greatly this century.
There were so many different aspects we discussed and so many different opportunities. The thing that I came away with was the clear understanding--the Chinese understand this, as they see a future in Africa that we don't see, and they are investing dramatically in Africa's future--that if the United States and other Western nations ignore this reality, the Africa of tomorrow will be a lot different than the one today and may not be our friend as we want them to be.
During my time in Congress, I have tried to advance several efforts to foster more engagement in Africa, including support for funding to address AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria through the Global Fund and PEPFAR, as well as mobility programs and clean water and sanitation. In fact, Chicago-based World Bicycle Relief is helping lead some of the most innovative mobility programs that help get kids to school and healthcare workers to visit rural, remote areas.
I didn't agree with President George W. Bush on many things, but I want to give him credit for making the United States a leader in stemming the HIV/AIDS pandemic in some of the poorest parts of the world, including Africa.
It was just over 20 years ago that nearly 30 million Africans were infected with HIV/AIDS--30 million. They had almost no access to treatment. President George W. Bush's response was known as PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It worked. PEPFAR and its companion effort, the Global Fund, dramatically curtailed the AIDS epidemic ravaging many parts of the world, including much of Africa, saving more than 25 million lives. These programs provide retroviral drugs for those with AIDS, allowing them to live productive lives and to prevent the spread of disease through childbirth.
Some might have forgotten just how devastating AIDS hit many parts of the world, killing more than 2 million people globally each year and leaving 14 million orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa. I was reminded on my trip just how devastating AIDS was to southern Africa. Take Malawi, where the PEPFAR and Global Fund programs have increased the number of Malawians living with AIDS, on treatment, from 5 percent to 95 percent--survivors.
So it is bewildering to me--I can't understand this--how we are presently engaged in a political debate on Capitol Hill as to whether PEPFAR is a good program. Extremists are arguing that we shouldn't reauthorize this historic, lifesaving program when people are still dependent on these drugs to survive from day to day and week to week.
Last year, President Bush--junior in this situation--wrote an op-ed, urging PEPFAR reauthorization, in the Washington Post in which he quoted his late speechwriter and PEPFAR champion, Michael Gerson, as follows:
What definition of pro-life does not include saving millions of lives from preventable disease and death?
Bush went on to note:
We are on the verge of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To abandon our commitment now would forfeit two decades of unimaginable progress and raise further questions about the worth of America's word.
I agree.
I call on my Republican friends to help authorize this historic, bipartisan, lifesaving effort without further delay.
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