Bill Gates is wrong: there’s plenty of corruption in health aid
Fascinating and rare interview on Channel4 News tonight with Bill & Melinda Gates talking about their anti-polio vaccination program. There are lots of potential criticisms of the Gates Foundation. For example, the polio program, they say, costs a billion dollars a year – is that the best use of that money? Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the fact that the Foundation is the world’s most philanthropic organisation, but is relatively unaccountable, and the system that allows one couple to amass that amount of money in the first place is probably broken.
On the whole, though, this is a bit churlish. The Gates Foundation does do good work that otherwise wouldn’t get done and we live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions, and all that. I do, however, disagree with Bill’s line early in the video (around 2.30) that “health aid really is not much affected by corruption”.
Here’s how it was explained to me in Zambia a couple of years ago. Aid agencies and governments decide to donate medical supplies to poor countries, say a bunch of CD4 measuring devices for HIV/AIDS victims. Rather than just shipping a few crates of the monitors to the hospitals that need them, the recipient government is given the money to buy the devices from, say, a European company that makes them.
Not hugely objectionable, indeed, possibly a great way of stimulating economic growth in both countries at the same time. But what happens is that every government official who deals with the transaction wants to take a ‘commission’ or cut, because that’s the ‘traditional way of doing business in Africa’ (their generalisation, not mine) you’re told. The Europeans can’t agree to this, because that would be seen as corruption, which they can’t sanction. Even though they’ll take their own legal cut from the deal, which we call profit.
Instead of confronting the issue head on or alerting the relevant anti-corruption watchdogs, the European company doesn’t want to lose out on the highly lucrative deal, or jeapordise future business, so it comes up with a plan.
The supplier sells the montiors to a local distributor, who handles all the dealings with the government and makes sure the right palms get greased. The distributor, naturally, also takes a cut for its efforts in ensuring the smooth flow of business.
The upshot of which, of course, is that far fewer CD4 monitors arrive with the impoverished AIDS victims who need them. Goodwill is lost between donor and recipient nation and everyone gets a little more world weary and cynical next time the call goes out for help.
This may all seem rather innocuous given the flagrant abuses of aid money in some areas. But it’s just the iceberg’s tip. Don’t take my word for it – Sweden announced just three days ago it was cutting its support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria because of graft.
Ironically, the GFFATM (I don’t think they often go by that acronym, thankfully) is protesting at the Swedish claims, but it too axed funding to Zambia for exactly the same reasons last June.
So yes, Bill, I’m afraid there is corruption in health aid.
Ice city
Over at BLDBLG: Project Iceworm, the US army’s cold war bunker built under the arctic icesheet. Nuclear powered and with twenty-odd giant caverns, the pictures are amazing. No dates, but according to the original site it was occupied between 1959-1966. Amazing.
Sonia in the old schoolhouse
Sonia in the old schoolhouse still, originally uploaded by nisuspi.
I do love this shot of Sonia, still teaching in the old schoolhouse. She had her third child last year, who is suffering from measles at the moment, yet she still walks the 7km commute to Kalomo everyday.
More photos up…
Bisca’s class, Grade 4, originally uploaded by nisuspi.
This time processed using Lightroom on Windows, rather than Bibble on Linux. Can’t say I’m as happy with the results, may reprocess them at some point.
George, the headmaster
Just as I was leaving, George asked if I could take a photo that he’d be able to hang on the wall as a permanent reminder of the school’s founder. He was embarrassed by the question, but it meant a lot to him. This is one of the set I came up with. Because there’s no electricity at the new school, his office is still quite dark – especially when it’s raining outside. This shot is a little noisy for my taste, but I do like the lighting effect – provided by a simple GorillaPod LED torch.
Simakakata day one
The first batch of shots from Simakakata are up on my Flickr page. Lots more still to come…
Filling station
A few pics of MachaWorks up at Flickr. Will blog in detail about what I saw there soon, and upload some more (better) shots too. Currently there are still several hundred pics from Zambia I’ve not even had chance to look at…
Turning a table
Hand made quality, that is.
In Ancient Greece, Plato used the idea of a table to discuss the philosophical notion of form. This table, however, is much more practical – it was built by Grade 8 students at Good Hope, a school in rural Zambia that George used to teach in. Makes my Garfield penholder I made at a similar age look a bit rubbish, doesn’t it?
The thing is, most of these children are from families of subsistence farmers who are mostly illiterate. Giving them a real skill like this to fall back on is incredibly important – there’ll always be a demand for skilled carpenters.
This is what George is trying to achieve in Simakakata – it’s the simplest, most clear expression of his vision there is.
In praise rage at Zambia buses
I was going to write a post about how impressed I am with the buses in Zambia. Some are huge 10 wheeled affairs that cope with dirt roads as easily as tarmac and while they could do with better ventilation, feel much more comfortable than you’d expect. Between the buses and the new Livingstone to Lusaka road, you can get to Kalomo from Livingstone in around an hour and a half for around £5.
And then this happened...
On the journey back from Simakakata – much more on this later – one of the back wheels sheered its bolts, literally hanging on by a thread. Undeterred, the drivers carried on at around 10km/h the whole way to Livingstone.
The ventilation problem became a big issue – usually the only way these packed behemoth stay cool (and fresh) is by the through draft when travelling at speed. Combined with the heat and the rain – which leaked through the windows – things got a little ripe.
Next time, I’m travelling with the other operator, Shalom.