News

Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, has stressed the importance of basic sanitation in her address to the World Health Assembly. Here is an article about sanitation on the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters” blog.

It might seem that sanitation programs would be highly cost effective:

• Approximately 10% of the world’s diseases could be prevented by good sanitation (Chan).
• Hand-washing with soap at critical times can reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by up to 47%. (UN Water). An important finding, given that diarrhoea kills one child every twenty seconds.
• The integrated approach of providing water, sanitation and hygiene reduces the number of deaths caused by diarrhoeal diseases by an average of 65% (WHO)*
• For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, $8 is returned in increased productivity (UNDP)
• Lack of safe water and sanitation costs sub-Saharan Africa around 5% of its Gross Domestic Produce (GDP) each year (UNDP)
• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases (UNPP)
• 11% more girls attend school when sanitation is available. (UK DFID)
• 15 pounds can be enough to provide someone access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation (WaterAid)

However, Giving What We Can has found that huge and important differences in the cost effectiveness of

a) Construction Programs (the construction of infastructure to improve water supplies)

b) Promotion Programs (the promotion of good sanitation and hygiene practices)

Construction programs are less than a tenth as efficient as some health interventions, and is thus not a top-recommended intervention.

Promoting sanitation practices, and even more so promoting hygiene practices like handwashing, is, however, highly cost-effective. It may be as cost-effective as the treatment of neglected tropical diseases.

We are thus undergoing further research into the cost-effectiveness of hygiene promotion. However, as of yet, we do not know of any charities that focus solely on hygiene promotion, so are not able to make recommendations.

See our short explanation of the cost-effectiveness of water and sanitation interventions here.

A vaccine for Dengue Fever is in the process of being developed, and might be ready for use by 2015. However

 While dengue vaccine development has been widespread among research institutions and pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi Pasteur, the largest vaccine developer in the world, is years ahead of the rest. If all goes well in the ongoing clinical trials, experts say immunizing the public may begin as soon as 2015. But the estimated 300 to 400 million people who will want the vaccine is too much for just one manufacturer.

With 2.5 billion at risk of dengue fever, health officials expect many of the urban poor (dengue is an urban, mosquito-born disease) to miss out on this important vaccine.

See here for an IRIN article, which explains more about the vaccine and dengue fever itself.

We are very pleased to be able to announce that one hundred people have now joined Giving What We Can. Each of them has made a lasting pledge to give 10% of their income to wherever will do the most to help fight poverty in developing countries.

In total, this comes to pledges of about $30 million, in today’s terms. To get the feel of what this can do, consider the following options.

Thank you to all those who have joined so far — together we really can make a great difference to the world.

Intervention by the Cambodian government has helped bring Schostosomiasis rates down from 30-70% to just 5% in its most affected provinces.

Irin reports,

Since 2002, the Cambodian government has overseen a vast deworming programme. In 2004, the country was the first to reach the WHO’s goal of covering three-quarters of school-aged children, or three million people.

This is a major triumph: the Carter Centre reports “In terms of its social and economic impacts, snail fever is second only to malaria as the most devastating parasitic disease in tropical countries” (Irin).

See here for the full Irin article, which explains and illustrates many of the causes, consequences and ways to tackle Schistosomiasis.

Giving What We Can has received some excellent, refreshed publicity just after it’s first birthday, with articles in most major newspapers and the BBC news website and a slot for Toby on The Daily Politics. The result of all this so far has been a great increase in members of the facebook group, a flurry of donations and words of support on SCI’s JustGiving site, and nearly 40 new members signing up! This is amazing news and will do so much to help relieve needless suffering and loss of life in the developing world.

Here is the Daily Politics broadcast, here is the really excellent BBC article, and here is SCI’s JustGiving page with some really heartening new donations and words of support.

Let’s hope this continues to spread!

Burkina Faso has become the first country to run a nationwide campaign to vaccinate citizens against the most common causes of meningitis. The vaccine costs just 50 cents. It has been under development for 10 years, at a cost of $50million. But The World Health Organisation reports that this development cost and speed is actually relatively impressive:

the development of MenAfriVac cost only US$ 50 million - a fraction of the amount usually required to develop and bring a new vaccine to market… The rapid development of the vaccine is in large part due to the commitment of the Serum Institute of India, Ltd., the vaccine manufacturer. Africans have in the past waited as long as 20 years for a vaccine to travel from the industrialized north to the nations of the south. In this case, MenAfriVac will be introduced in Africa before it is distributed anywhere else.

WHO also reports that:

If MenAfriVac is introduced throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the resulting reduction in cases of meningitis is expected to free up more than US$ 120 million in the period up to 2015, money from national budgets which would otherwise be spent on medical costs for diagnosis and treatment. These funds can then be brought to bear on other problems of disease and poverty that weigh so heavily on the region. 

See here for the full story.

Yahoo! “news” has published an interview with Oxfam’s chief executive, Barbara Stocking. It gives an insight into how Oxfam’s top management consider and decide between different aid projects and goals, with a particular focus on the relationship between political/ security aims and development aims.

On this second issue, the article includes the following quote from David Cameron, from a speech to the House of Commons last week:

“We need to broaden the argument for the aid budget. We should say quite clearly the DfID budget is also about conflict prevention and trying to stop things upstream that would cost us more downstream. Often the modern equivalent of the battleship is the C-17 loaded with aid.”

And the modern equivalent of aid is…?

The UK government says “we will stick to the rules laid down by the OECD about what spending counts as aid.”

However, as the article highlights:

The problem is that if Britain meets its requirements to the letter it will actually be downgrading its aid contributions. France accepts the payment of overseas student fees as aid, for example, where Britain does not. Other countries include payments for refugees in their aid budgets. The UK doesn’t.

See here for the full article at Yahoo! Talking Politics.

An unnamed drugs company has lowered the price of a vaccine that combats five diseases still prevalent in the developing world- diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, Hib and hepatitis B. Over the past six years, the price of this vaccine has fallen by $0.68 to $2.97. This change brings the price down to $2.56, making it even easier for individuals, political bodies and aid organisations to prevent people suffering from debilitating, lifethreatening diseases.

The Guardian comments:

It’s a long time since we [in the developed world]’ve had babies dying from diphtheria, which used to be a lurking evil here. In an ideal world, cost would not be an issue. These sorts of vaccinations should be automatic everywhere. But GAVI has limited funds from the donor nations, which have become less generous in the recession, and pressure on those funds is getting heavier all the time… [Nevertheless], When money is tight and the need is great, it’s an approach that makes sense.

See here for the Guardian’s report.

GlaxoSmithKleine have pledged to donate £12m per year of the drug albendazole, which will treat some of the world’s poorest people for intestinal worms. The one billion tablets to be donated are sufficient to treat every child in Africa. Other drugs companies have followed up with similar commitments.

See here for the full story, from the Guardian’s Global Health Blog.

The Good News!

The UK Department for International Development (DfID) is honouring its commitment to increase aid spending to 0.7% of GDP by 2013. And it will fund the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) with $25 million over the next five years. SCI is one of Giving What We Can’s top rated charities, with one year of preventative treatment for Schistosomiasis (’bilharzia’) costing just 50p. Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell highlights that this makes SCI’s work not only hugely cost-effective for healthcare, but also one of the most powerful ways to keep children in school:

Education is one of the best routes out of poverty, yet millions of children are unable to fully benefit from attending school because they are weakened by these diseases.

British aid will provide up to 75 million lifesaving treatments - ensuring that ill health doesn’t stop millions of the most vulnerable children getting a basic education and breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.

It’s a very positive sign that the British government are taking cost-effectiveness in development aid seriously. See here for the Guardian’s report on DfID’s pledge.

The Bad News.

DfID is, at the same time, doubling the amount of aid it channels to conflict-ridden states. This aid will now take up a third of all UK aid spending (previously, it was one quarter). Many working in the international development sector are angered by this militarisation of aid. Save the Children’s Patrick Watt asked:

“What is the real driver of aid allocation? Is it poverty, is it need and the ability to use money effectively or is it the agenda of the National Security Council? We do need to have a balanced approach to aid allocation that reflects the principles of the 2002 International Development Act which stipulates that all aid should be for poverty reduction.

“…[T]he countries that will lose out will be poor but stable countries like Ghana or Tanzania… You will end up in a slightly perverse situation, if we’re not careful, where countries with a lot of poor people that happen not to be on the geopolitical radar are losing out.”

Joan Ruddock MP also pressed David Cameron on the change, arguing that:

“I have always supported the case for greater conflict prevention. But conflict prevention needs to be understood and practised by the military themselves.”

David Cameron defended the switch against this charge, saying, “we’re mad if we don’t put money into mending broken states where so many of the problems of poverty come from.”

See here for the Guardian’s article into this ‘militarisation’ of aid.

Furthermore, the increase in aid will only begin in four years’ time. For millions of people, four years from now will be too late for them to receive life-saving medicine, get an education, receive adequate nutrition in early childhood… There are further fears, too:

the budget will stay fairly flat in the first three years of the review, and then jump by 28% in the fourth year. One expert said: “That is such an enormous jump, you have to question whether they seriously mean to do it.”

There are also fears about the impact of DfID cutting admin spending from £72m to £34m. The Guardian reports:

“There’s a danger of falling for the mythology of faceless bureaucrats in London, as if there are lots of people doing nothing very useful,” said a former senior diplomat.

“For example, a report comes in on human rights abuse and it sits in an in-tray because there’s not enough staff with quality time to sort out priorities and send the right stuff up to ministers in timely fashion, for decision and action. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen even on present staffing, so there are risks in cutting too hard.”

See here for the Guardian’s excellent article -which paints the new aid budget as moving Britain to a ’soft-power’ rather than ‘hard-power’ nation- from which those last quotes were taken.