Recent news
July 2011
House subcommittee releases FY2012 appropriations bill, cuts global health funding
July 27, 2011 -- The House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee recently released its fiscal year (FY) 2012 appropriations bill, which includes cuts for many programs such as global health. The overall bilateral assistance account is cut by $3.5 billion from FY2010 levels, and is $4.8 billion below President Obama’s FY2012 request. For example, the Global Health Initiative (GHI) is funded at $7.1 billion for FY2012, which is $1.6 billion less than the President’s FY2012 request. The bill contains $1.04 billion for the US Agency for International Development—a reduction of $488 million from last year’s level and $705 million below the President’s request.
The subcommittee will mark up its bill, but analysts do not expect the level of funding to change much at this stage. The Senate will also introduce its own bill, and global health advocates expect that it will include higher amounts of funding for the GHI. However, advocates expect that funding for global health will be affected by the ongoing budget crisis.
"Global health funding in the House could even get worse with certain amendments," said Ashley Bennett, senior program associate at the Global Health Technologies Coalition. "The Senate will be more friendly toward global health, but what is happening today is alarming because global health programs (in the House and Senate) had been such a bipartisan issue in the past, and these are huge cuts." See the links below for more information.
