Democratic Platform Fights Poverty and Disease

Following are some highlights of the 2008 Democratic Party platform:

• It is time to make the UN Millenium Development Goals, which aim to curtail poverty in half by 2015, America's goals as well.
• We will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwile goals.
• As part of this new funding, we will create a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring together the world in eliminating the global education deficit with the goal of supporting free, quality basic education for every child in the world.
• We will modernize our foreign assistance policies, tools, and operations in an elevated, empowered, consolidated, and streamlined US development agency. Development and and diplomacy will be reinforced as key pillars of US foreign policy, and our civilian agencies will be staffed and equipped to address effectively new global challenges.
• We must do more to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic,as well as malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases. We will provide $50 billion over five years to streangthen existing US programs and expand them to new regions of the world, including Southeast Asia, India, and parts of Europe. We will increase US contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria to ensure that global efforts to fight endemic disease continue to move ahead.