RESULTS
Austin 2016 Newsletter
RESULTS celebrates Global Fund
“We’re not just committed to fighting
these epidemics, we’re committed to end them.” -
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom, Sept.16th.
On
September 16, 2016 in Montreal, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau hosted a
successful pledging conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria. Pledges from the private sector and governments worldwide totaled
$13 billion. These funds will enable the Global Fund to save 8 million lives
and prevent 300 million new infections in the next 3 years alone. Leading the
way, the U.S. promised to match $1 for every $2 contributed by other donors up
to a maximum of $4.3 billion. Two African countries pledged for the first time,
while other countries increased their contributions, one by 45%.
In June, U.S. RESULTS advocates visited Washington DC and urged
the administration to make exactly this pledge. Our RESULTS staff supported
this advocacy keeping us informed and engaged.
Thanks to your support, RESULTS is expanding around the
world, helping citizens in other countries become effective in guiding
decisions of their own governments.
Indeed RESULTS organizations in Australia, Canada, the UK, France,
Japan, Kenya, Korea, Zambia and South Africa successfully urged their
governments and the European Commission to make bold pledges to the Global
Fund.
Fighting hard for maternal & child survival
RESULTS continues to push for passage of the Reach
Every Mother and Child Act. The bill proposes reforms with the bold goal of
saving the lives of 15 million children and of 600,000 mothers by 2020. To achieve the goal the reforms call for U.S.
assistance to focus on the poorest communities, scale up the most effective
interventions, improve accountability, and coordinate programs across various U.S.
agencies.
RESULTS advocates generated media supporting the Reach Act
in all fifty states, a first for the national organization. As we compose this newsletter there are 201 cosponsors in
the House and 26 in the Senate. RESULTS
Austin secured 5 of the 12 Texas cosponsors and now we are intensifying our
efforts by urging the cosponsors to encourage the chairman of that committee to
move the bill forward.
Your support throughout this campaign has enabled us to keep
pushing. We hope to get this bill passed
before the end of the year, a rare accomplishment for a bill the first session
it is introduced.
RESULTS
Austin activities in 2016
RESULTS Austin is excited that Dr. Sheeba Kunnel, a pediatrician
here in Austin, joined as a strong member of our group. With her energy renewing our enthusiasm, we
accomplished:
- Six published letters to the editor on global health.
- Face to face meetings with Representatives Gene Green, Bill Flores, Roger Williams, Michael McCaul, John Carter & Lamar Smith.
- Fourteen meetings with congressional staff.
- Rep. McCaul cosponsored the Education for All Act, which passed unanimously in the House.
- Three of our representatives signed letters supporting appropriations requests.
- Four of us attended the International Conference in DC.
Thanks to your generous support, RESULTS expansion staff has
added two new groups to our region this year in Louisiana and Oklahoma. You are empowering RESULTS outreach in all 50
states reaching more members of Congress and producing more media for greater
impact.
We are also pursuing a group start in San Antonio. Please let us know if you know folks there
who might be interested in helping with that effort.
2016 fundraising
RESULTS
Austin will not be having a benefit event this year. Instead we share our progress and ask for
your renewed support. Dollars invested
in RESULTS get perhaps the “biggest bang for the buck” of any
organization. They pay for staff, who
support and empower us, the volunteers. Together
we all create change.
We
ask for your continued support for RESULTS. We hope you share our vision of a
world where children can grow up healthy and mothers don't die while pregnant
or giving birth. We see a world where
parents are surviving AIDS and tuberculosis in order to work and care for their
families. We want a world where everyone has access to education and economic
opportunity. With your help we can achieve
this vision. Thank you for being our
partner!
If you wish to donate, please contribute online at www.tinyurl.com/RESULTSAustin2016.
RESULTS / RESULTS Educational Fund
1101 15th St. NW, Suite 1200 - Washington, DC
20005
www.RESULTS.org
