There appears to be an inaccuracy in this article on American rewards. It states: "USAID has also funded HIV prevention and treatment in Burma." The [him] moderator can find no evidence that USAID has ever directly funded HIV treatment in the country.
Exactly one year ago USAID produced a document without any reference to any direct funding for HIV treatment in Burma: http://www.hivinfo4mm.org/blog/_archives/2010/12/8/4698775.html. And two recently-revised documents have no mention of direct HIV treatment funding: http://www.usaid.gov/rdma/countries/burma.html and http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia/countries/burma/.
Is there secret funding that the [him] moderator does not know about or does the article have it wrong?
[him] moderator
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US Envoy to Discuss Burma Developments with China
Saw Yan Naing
Irrawaddy
December 7, 2011
Derek Mitchell, the US special envoy on Burma, will visit China next week to discuss recent developments in Burma following last week's historic visit to the country—a longtime Chinese ally—by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The trip is scheduled to begin on Dec 12-13 after the envoy finishes meetings this week in Japan and South Korea, a US official told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.
Clinton’s trip was the highest-profile US diplomatic mission to Burma in 56 years. During her visit, she said that the US will relax restrictions on international aid to the impoverished nation if the Burmese government makes further reforms.
Clinton also said there would be diplomatic rewards if the Burmese government followed through on promises of reform. The US is also offering US $1.2 million in new aid that would support healthcare and the victims of landmines.
Last month, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a new five-year project to Family Health International (FHI), an organization that works to improve reproductive health around the world, in order to combat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis in the Greater Mekong Region.
The project will focus on three countries—Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand—according to a press statement released by USAID.
Under the project, the USAID will grant $24 million to an anti-malaria project in Burma, health officials told the Rangoon-based journal, The Myanmar Times.
As of June 12, 2008, USAID had provided more than $31.4 million in disaster relief to the people of Burma in addition to its regular program funds.
The project, which aims to halt the spread of drug-resistant malaria, will draw on prevention, treatment and containment models developed in Cambodia. It will be set up by University Research Corp (URC), which oversees USAID-funded projects in about 40 countries.
Kheang Soy Ty, chief of University Research Corp’s malaria containment project in Cambodia, told The Phnom Penh Post that URC staff will meet in Bangkok in the second week of December to discuss implementation of the project. Major concerns will include reaching populations in areas under the control of armed ethnic groups, where malaria is endemic.
USAID funding for Burma had been directed mainly to pro-democracy Burmese organizations, humanitarian assistance to Burmese citizens in Thailand and containing “the spread of infectious diseases” along the country’s border with Thailand. USAID has also funded HIV prevention and treatment in Burma.
USAID’s Regional Development Mission for Asia has been working to combat malaria since 2004, concentrating over the past five years on strengthening national-level TB control programs and financed applied research in areas related to HIV/TB screening.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22612
