Another contribution to the Anit-Malarials controversy

Nick-H

The World Bank has an annual budget of US$20 billion, and is the largest organisation operating with a mission to reduce poverty worldwide. Malaria destroys about 1 million lives a year; the disease is the leading parasitic cause of death for Africa's children and impoverishment for their families. Here we examine how these factors meet in the new Global Strategy & Booster Program, which is the Bank's plan for controlling that disease in 2005–10.1

We believe this plan is inadequate to reverse the Bank's troubling history of neglect for malaria. In the past 5 years, the Bank has failed to uphold a pledge to increase funding for malaria control in Africa, has claimed success in its malaria programmes by promulgating false epidemiological statistics, and has approved clinically obsolete treatments for a potentially deadly form of malaria. Crucially, the Bank also downsized its malaria staff, so that it cannot swiftly execute the restoration it plans under the Global Strategy & Booster Program. We summarise the evidence, show that the Bank possesses demonstrably little expertise in malaria, and argue that the Bank should relinquish its funding to other agencies better placed to control the disease.

The Full article, From The Lancet, quoted by Africa Fighting Malaria

this is old news; I remember it being covered by the BBC sometime back. But it makes interesting reading to those following the subject of Malaria and its prevention. Although dealing primarily with Africa, India is mentioned too

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

chrisito

very interesting nick-h... and web link makes for pretty horrific, albeit very informative, reading.

how can an organisation such as this not be fully accountable for their actions- is there no external audit or responsiblity for what they say and do?

i`ve just finished reading a book by jeremy sachs- "the end of poverty- how we can make it happen in our lifetime" (fascinating) and he talks about the world bank and says exactly the same thing as mentioned in the orignal post- they don`t have the expertise to manage malaria, (as well as AIDS and other diseases).

Sachs says that the UN is much better equipped to deal with this issue, but unfortunately at the UN it is one nation, one vote, whereas with the World Bank it is one dollar one vote. the leading players have no desire to relinquish this control.

Drifting a little off subject but still relevant i believe- funding.... i find the whole thing really sad- we have these millenium goals to end extreme poverty by the year 2025, but there is not the political will to do this. the richer countries only have to give 0.7% of their GNP each year, and the politicians talk a good game, but behind closed doors they acknowledge that this is impossible. the US gives only 0.14% of its GNP, and a lot of the richer nations are guilty of serious underfunding, although not quite to this degree.

what`s the solution i want to know?- which organisations target this horrific lack of concern- make poverty history- anyone else? i`m sure if the majority of the people knew the facts about the World Bank, malaria, these millenium goals etc in the "developed" countries, there would be some sort of outcry. i think bono, bob geldof any others have put the issue on the agenda, but as this article shows, it definitely needs some additional momentum.

Nick-H

This article dates back a while; don't know if anything has changed.