White House releases FY14 budget request

"The Obama administration released its fiscal year 2014 budget on Wednesday," Devex's "Pennsylvania Ave." blog reports (Lieberman, 4/11). "Among other provisions, the new proposal calls for modest increases in global health and development assistance, as well as cuts in military aid to foreign countries and in special contingency funding for so-called 'front-line states' -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan," Inter Press Service writes (Lobe, 4/11). According to the Associated Press, the FY14 budget request calls for "$8.3 billion for global health initiatives" at the State Department and USAID combined (4/11). The FY14 budget proposal "show[s] a continued commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, but also a continued drop in funding for" PEPFAR, the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog notes (Aziz, 4/10). "A number of development and humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in poor countries expressed guarded relief at the proposed foreign aid budget, which was unveiled as part of a total $3.8 trillion federal budget package that will now be taken up by Congress," IPS writes (4/11).

Additional information about global health spending proposed in the FY14 budget request is available from the Kaiser Family Foundation's "Policy Tracker" (4/10).