Fault Lines in Global Health: Universal AIDS Treatment

In the past decade, global health has become a new U.S. foreign policy priority, enjoyed exceptional bipartisan support, and climbed to an annual US government investment of $10 billion, fully a third of all U.S. foreign assistance. Global health has come to be seen as a 'best buy' for achieving concrete health improvements in people's lives and leveraging the United States' 'Smart Power.' In this same period, several complex and polarizing issues have gained momentum.  They defy easy solutions, divide and fragment constituencies, and impede progress.  In the midst of ever tighter budgets and heightened scrutiny of investments, these controversies can corrode consensus and have serious downstream implications: in term of strategy, core values, policy coherence and the allocation of future dollars.

On August 6, 2010, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center is launching a year-long debate series—Fault Lines in Global Health—intended to generate an informed, civil, bipartisan, and open airing of opinion on critical global health controversies.

The noted health expert and correspondent, Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, has kindly agreed to moderate the series. Each debate will run 90 minutes, feature a lead presenter and 1-2 respondents, and allow time for substantial audience participation. Critical readings on each topic will be available on the Smart Global Health website in advance of the event.

On August 6, Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, will affirm the resolution, "Resolved: That the U.S. commitment to universal AIDS treatment is unsustainable and decreases U.S. foreign policy leverage." His recent piece with Stephen Wittels in Foreign Affairs, available here, provides the foundation of his argument.

Todd Summers of the ONE Campaign will respond to Ambassador Lyman on the sustainability of U.S. commitments on AIDS. J. Stephen Morrison, Director of the Global Health Policy Center, will comment on the foreign policy dimensions of Ambassador Lyman's case.

Please join us for what promises to be an exciting start to our Fault Lines in Global Health series:

Friday, August 6, 2010
9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
B1 Conference Center
1800 K Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20006

To attend or sign up for the live webcast, please RSVP at http://smartglobalhealth.org/page/s/faultlines1