"The fact that they require 30 percent of the money to be spent on abstinence education -- that is a big chunk of money when you consider how expensive the medicine and other things are," Clinton said.
"On the other hand, you have to give them credit. They are getting $3 billion a year out there that wouldn't have been out there otherwise, and they have saved a lot of lives."
Clinton said that considering all the money the Bush administration was spending on wars while giving tax cuts, "they're still giving quite a bit of money to AIDS. That's good."
On Sunday at the conference, Microsoft founder Bill Gates -- who has pledged almost $2 billion to combat AIDS -- said that women and girls in developing nations needed to become more empowered in order for the fight against HIV/AIDS to succeed.
Clinton agreed, but said it was difficult to change cultures.
"It's much more likely for HIV to be spread in areas where women's and girls' role in society are weak and where they are not valued and not developed," he said.
"What we try to do is to send in role models that will change that. One of our representatives is a young woman who was infected as a result of a rape. And when people see her, they see she's not ashamed. She doesn't feel stigmatized. "
Clinton also discussed Sen. Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut's Democratic primary last week to anti-war liberal Ned Lamont.
Lieberman has characterized his loss -- and the need for his subsequent independent run -- as liberals in the party purging those with the Lieberman-Clinton position of progressiveness in domestic politics and strong national security credentials.
"Well, if I were Joe and I was running as an independent, that's what I'd say, too," Clinton said.
"But that's not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was, 'I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction.'"
"His position is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position, which was, 'Does it matter if they have weapons? None of this matters. … This is a big, important priority, and 9/11 gives us the way of attacking and deposing Saddam.'"
Clinton said that a vote for Lamont was not, as Lieberman had implied, a vote against the country's security.
