enhanced US battle plan for our global fight against AIDS. I was pleased to lead that Presidential Mission during the Easter recess - accompanied by members and staff from both parties and chambers — to witness firsthand both the tragedies and triumphs of AIDS in Africa. In response to the findings of that trip, both the President and the Vice President agreed that we needed to respond to do more immediately and worked to develop an initiative to address this growing pandemic. This week, the Administration announced a broad new initiative to invest $100 million in the FY2000 budget for this

effort.

This initiative provides for a series of steps to increase US leadership through support for effective community-based solutions and technical assistance to developing nations. This effort more than doubles our funding for programs of prevention and care in Africa, and challenges our G8 and other partners to similarly increase their efforts. This initiative is a significant increase in the US government's investment in the global battle against AIDS and it begins to reflect the magnitude of this rapidly escalating pandemic.

A critical component of this initiative is a commitment to seek an additional $100 million in Fiscal Year 2000 funds to help support this battle. Four key investments have been identified:

■ $48 million will be used for prevention. Specifically, we hope to implement a variety of prevention and stigma reduction strategies, especially for women and youth, including: HIV education, engagement of political, religious, and civic

leaders, voluntary counseling and testing, interventions to reduce mother-to-child transmission, and enhanced training and technical assistance programs.

⚫ $23 million will support home and community-based care. This will help create

and enhance counseling and support systems, and help clinics and home health workers provide basic medical care (including treatment for related illnesses like STDs and TB)

■ $10 million will go for the care of children orphaned by AIDS. This will allow us to continue efforts that are being started this fiscal year through funds supported by Representatives Callahan and Pelosi and their colleagues. We hope to improve our ability to assist families and communities in caring for their orphaned children through nutritional assistance, education, training, health, and counseling support, in coordination with micro-enterprise programs.

■ And $19 million will be used to strengthen prevention and treatment infrastructure. These funds will help to increase the capacity for the effective delivery of essential services through governments, NGOs, and the private sector. We also need to

enhance surveillance systems so that we can better track the epidemic and target HIV prevention efforts.

This assistance will come through the combined work of three Federal agencies: the US Agency for International Development would utilize $55 million, HHS would invest $35 million, and the Department of Defense the remaining $10 million.

Some of the other key components of this initiative include an increase in our efforts to include the AIDS epidemic in our foreign policy dialogue, both to support political leadership in countries hardest hit and to promote an increased response by our developed nation partners. We are also taking steps to increase our coordination with the private sector and the many non-governmental organizations working in endemic regions, including religious organizations.

We hope that this initiative will receive the broad-based bipartisan support it deserves. AIDS is not a democratic or republican issue – it is a devastating human tragedy that cries out to all of us for help.

You will find a more complete description of this initiative and the problems it seeks to address in the report released by the Administration earlier this week. I have submitted a copy to this Subcommittee and would like to request that it be included in the record as part of my remarks.

Let me conclude by thanking this Subcommittee for its interest in this issue, and offer my continued assistance as you seek ways to respond to this terrible tragedy. Not too many years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Last week, Archbishop Tutu expressed the same sentiment through an African proverb:

When one steps on a thom and it goes into the toe, the whole body bends to pull

it out.

We are one world – and in many ways – Africa's destiny is our destiny. Every day, another 16,000 people around the world are infected with HIV, and 90% of those live in our poorest nations. There is hope, but that hope will only be realized if we act. We are not at the beginning of the end of AIDS, but rather at the end of the beginning. Our resolve to stop this epidemic must be strengthened, our resources significantly increased, our determination made clear. Let us hope and pray that we have the foresight and the fortitude to seize this opportunity.

I thank the Chairman and this Committee for allowing me to be with you here today.

Mr. MICA. We would like to recognize now Mr. Joseph Papovich, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative with the USTR's Office. Thank you. Welcome, you are recognized.

Mr. PAPOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for inviting us to testify at today's hearing. This hearing focuses on a topic that is of crucial importance to the health and future of millions of people in Africa and elsewhere, the role of our policy in ensuring access to effective medicines for AIDS and other illnesses. The administration, together with our partners in Africa and around the globe, has developed a policy intended to ensure access to current medicines to treat AIDS while preventing the incentives that will speed the development of effective medicines that in the future have the potential to occur and prevent disease.

In the so-called Uruguay Round negotiations that established the World Trade Organization, a top priority for the United States, as a leading exporter of creative and innovative products, was to secure adequate and effective protections for all forms of intellectual property, including patent protection for American pharmaceuticals.

In this we have succeeded. All WTO members, over varying transition periods, committed to this, through the Agreement on TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Another important component of the trade policy is the so-called Special 301. Under those provisions of the Trade Act of 1974, Congress directed USTR annually to identify foreign countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights and to issue a public report to this effect at the end of each April. In the report, countries are placed on lists, ranging from most egregious, where trade sanctions may ultimately be involved if significant problems are not resolved, to a priority watch list or to a watch list, where we monitor the situation and urge improvements in protection.

Congress amended Special 301 in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act to clarify that a country can be found to deny adequate and effective intellectual property protection, and thus placed on one of these lists, even if the country is otherwise in compliance with its obligations under the TRIPS agreement.

Each year USTR, in consultation with other agencies, examines the level of intellectual property protection afforded by our trading partners. We analyze legislation, enforcement activity, and market trends to arrive at our determination. We draw on the reporting from our embassies and consulates overseas, but we also receive input from industry associations, individuals, and even foreign governments.

In some instances we agree with the recommendations of those outside of the government; in others we do not. For example, during this year's Special 301 review, there were recommendations to designate South Africa as a Priority Foreign Country, which could have resulted in trade sanctions. We chose not to do so, however, because we did not agree with their assessment of the magnitude of the problem and because we had already developed a framework to resolve our differences, which we are confident will work.

The objective of intellectual property protection is focused on ensuring incentives for research and development, so that new drugs