Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold at the CSIS Task Force Meeting on HIV/AIDS February 12, 2004 I am delighted to be participating in the important work of this Task Force, and am honored to be in the company of so many distinguished experts who have devoted so much intellectual firepower, so much practical effort, and so many long hours to fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I am also so pleased to be working again with Senator Frist, who was my partner on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on African Affairs for several years in which we both served as Chairman or Ranking Member. I know how knowledgeable he is about these issues and how deeply committed he is to this fight. I want to get right to the heart of the matter today, so it is not my intention to relate a history of my interest in these issues or to marshal evidence of my commitment – if we all took such an approach, we would be here for months and would accomplish very little. But because I am new to the Task Force, I do want to highlight some of the issues that I believe are particularly important at this critical time. We have come such a long way. We have moved past the days when talking about scaling up treatment made one a radical, past the days when policy-makers had to be convinced that this is an urgent and critically important crisis. We have moved past any notion that we can protect our interests and meet our basic human obligations by addressing AIDS on the cheap. But now comes the hardest part – getting the response right. Now we have to think about the management challenges that come with such a large increase in U.S. resources directed at fighting HIV/AIDS, including the tremendous administrative burdens that are imposed on our embassies. Now more than ever we have to emphasize the importance of coordinating our efforts wisely with other U.S. assistance priorities so that we can maximize positive spill-over effects wherever possible. Because so many questions of context – overall health infrastructure and health indicators, prenatal care, food security, legal infrastructure – are such an important part of addressing HIV/AIDS, and so many important needs do not get the same resources or focused attention that we have finally marshaled for HIV/AIDS, we must make sure that opportunities for coordination are not overlooked. Now we have to find ways to transform the discussion about factors that make women and girls so vulnerable to AIDS into concrete action to address these sensitive but crucially important issues. And now we must be prepared for the fact that some expensive initiatives will not work they way they should right away, and we all have to be prepared to tackle problems that emerge honestly, so that we can make the fixes that are necessary to get this right. Of course there is much more, and I commend the work done thus far by the working groups. I look forward to learning from all of you. Finally, I want to make my apologies now, as I will have to make an early exit this morning. The Secretary of State is testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning, and I will need to be there. But I look forward to reviewing the report of the full day's events, and to continuing to work with all of you in the months ahead.

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