Health workers engaged in HIV/AIDS programs should squeeze out the value of every cent of money for the global HIV fight, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates said at the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria.
Clinton and Gates added that AIDS workers and activists could not expect donors to contribute more funds, given the current economic downturn, without assurance that their money will be well spent, Reuters says.
Clinton suggested that as AIDS workers ask for more money from donor governments, they themselves should “change the way we do what we do.”
The former U.S. president said: “If we’re going to make this case, they (donor governments) have to believe that we are doing our job faster, better and cheaper. Then we have the moral standing to go ask people to give us more money.”
Meanwhile, Bill Gates, emphasized that efficiency is vital to scaling up access to AIDS drugs.
“We can’t keep spending AIDS resources in exactly the same way we do today,” the founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation explained. “As we … advocate for more funding, we also need to make sure we’re getting the most benefit from each dollar of AIDS funding and every ounce of effort.”