What the US Congress might do next in funding global COVID-19 response
by Adva Saldinger, DEVEX
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is expected to begin discussions on the next COVID-19 supplemental funding bill next week, and global health and development advocates are pushing for lawmakers to include billions of dollars for the global response.
The U.S. House of Representatives appropriations committee has released its annual funding bill for fiscal year 2021. Here's a breakdown of where funds are going and the details of the COVID-19 response funding that's included.
While the House of Representatives in May passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, which included no funding for the global response, advocates say they are hopeful that the Senate, which has waited until now to work on its version of the next emergency funding bill, will include some.
Thus far, only about 0.1% of total U.S. COVID-19 funding has gone to the global response and the “U.S. can and should do more,” said Porter Delaney, founding partner of the Kyle House Group consulting firm, at a press conference Monday.
That global funding is critical not only for the world’s poorest countries, but also for responding to the disease domestically, said Tom Hart, the North America executive director of the ONE Campaign.
“I don’t think I can overstate how important it is that the domestic response will not work if there is not at least some global response,” he told Devex.
There appears to be growing momentum in the Senate to include global funding in the supplemental appropriations package lawmakers hope to pass before the end of the month.
On Thursday, a bipartisan group of 33 senators sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying they “strongly support significant U.S. investment in the international response.” The letter went on to say that Americans agree that the U.S. “must” lead in the pandemic’s global response and that the signatories look forward to working with Senate leadership to make sure the “next phase of emergency funding to address COVID-19 includes a robust, coordinated, and sufficiently resourced international response.
The importance of the letter cannot be “understated” and is an “incredibly important symbol of bipartisan support,” especially with key leaders such as Sen. James Risch — the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — signing on, said David Cronin, a government affairs specialist for Catholic Relief Services.
Some advocates are a bit more ambivalent. “There still seems to be this missing link when it comes to how convinced they are or how motivated they are to truly invest in the response and resilience of programs abroad,” said one global health advocate, who asked for anonymity to speak freely.
The House's failure to include any global funding in the HEROES Act — likely because leadership "didn't feel it would play well to commit global funding, given the domestic crisis" — could "put the Senate in a bind in terms of their response," the advocate told Devex.
“We’re cautiously optimistic around the Senate coming through and hopeful that they do but a bit worried that there is some level of permission to kick the can down the road,” the advocate said.
A key question is how much global funding the Senate would include in its proposal. Global development and health advocates met in April and proposed a global funding package of $12 billion, though some advocates are now pushing the Senate to include $20 billion in its emergency supplemental, given the growing needs.
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