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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.16^th.

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.