The President's Emergency Response to AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) recently released its first Annual Report to Congress. The 123 page document (available in PDF | 2.6 meg) is the most detailed public view yet of the accomplishments and ambitions of the world's largest AIDS program.

The report is laden with statistics demonstrating accomplishments in care, prevention, training, and other services. It also does a reasonable job outlining program priorities and directions. The report doesn't, however, provide a usable compilation of the most important question: where is the money going? (Appendix II lists six uses of funding with no breakout detail.) There is also limited mention of grant recipients and contractors who do much of the PEPFAR program implementation.

The Annual Report is a welcome step forward for PEPFAR communications. Overall, however, PEPFAR still has a long ways to go in its stated goal of communications "transparency". Two years out there is still no reasonable program web site. Only one site worldwide links to the Annual Report (USAID). A Google search on "PEPFAR" brings up discussion of PEPFAR in AIDS Matters as the fourth entry (in contrast, a Google search on "Global Fund" doesn't return AIDS Matters in the top 200 results). PEPFAR certainly has a lot of information to share with the global AIDS policy community. The Annual Report is a good start.