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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. DAVIS) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, earlier today we voted on H.R. 3519, the World Bank AIDS Marshall Plan Trust Fund Act. I am pleased to have supported this important legislation.
I want to commend its authors, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. LEACH) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. LEE) for their vision and commitment to ending the horrors of HIV/AIDS globally.
I also want to take this moment to thank former representative Ron Dellums, Sandra Thurman, Mel Foote, Jesse Jackson, Senior, and others who have provided leadership efforts to try to combat the problem of AIDS in Africa.
The legislation that we have passed today will provide significant funding over 5 years for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research in developing nations. The bill establishes a trust fund at the World Bank that has the potential to leverage $1 billion a year from donor nations and the private sector.
We currently face a crisis as it relates to HIV/AIDS globally. Perhaps nowhere is this crisis more evident than on the continent of Africa. More than 16 million people have died from AIDS since the 1980s, 60 percent of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Not since the Bubonic plague ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages has there been a more devastating disease.
Currently, 23 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are affected with either HIV or with AIDS, with new infections coming at the rate of 5,000 a day, according to the World Health Organization. In South Africa alone, it is estimated that there are more than 1,500 new HIV infections each day.
Unfortunately, due to our accelerated travel and trade, the pandemic is spreading to Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and India rapidly.
I applaud President Clinton for his courage and vision to declare HIV/AIDS as a national security threat. He realizes that the global spread of HIV/AIDS has the potential to destabilize governments and disrupt trade in free market democracies abroad.
The Congressional Black Caucus 2 years ago urged Secretary Donna Shalala to declare a state of emergency relative to HIV/AIDS in communities of color in America because we realized that this disease destroys our most precious resource, and that is, our people.
Mr. Speaker, as the most developed nation in the world, we have an ongoing obligation and responsibility to share our technology and medical expertise with developing nations. Former President Franklin Roosevelt once said that the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Today this Congress took a step to lift the lots of those who have too little. The World Bank AIDS Marshall Trust Fund Plan will help to ensure that the Federal government, our Federal government, commits to addressing this issue over the next several years.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have joined with other Members of this House who took a bold and gigantic step in not only dealing with an issue at the domestic level, but going abroad, understanding that we are a world community. I salute Congress for the action that it took this day.
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