PHM-Exch> Things you ought to know about

[Claudio Schuftan]

[Courtesy f Dr David Zakus]

The Truth About Extreme Global Inequality

The crisis of capital, the rise of the Occupy movement and the crash of
Southern Europe have brought the problem of income inequality into
mainstream consciousness in the West for the first time in many decades.
Now everyone is talking about how the richest 1 percent have captured such
a disproportionate share of wealth in their respective countries. This
point came crashing home once again when an animated video, illustrating
wealth disparities in the US, went viral last month. When an infographic
catches the attention of tens of millions of internet users, you know it is
hitting a nerve.

But the global scale of inequality remains largely absent from this story.
So we at /The Rules decided to put together a video that would give it some
attention.

For more details: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/
opinion/2013/04/201349124135226392.html

You have to click on this link and then click on the Links for the short
videos in the text. Unbelievable.

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The Charitable-Industrial Complex

I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and
television and knew little about the world of philan- thropy as practiced
by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That
year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to give nearly
all of his accumu- lated wealth back to society. In addition to making
several large donations, he added generously to the three foundations that
my parents had created years earli- er, one for each of their children to
run.

Early on in our philanthropic journey, my wife and I became aware of
something I started to call Philanthropic Colonialism. I noticed that a
donor had the urge to “save the day” in some fashion. People (including me)
who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they
could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education
practices, job training or busi- ness development, over and over I would
hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into
another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms.

Often the results of our deci- sions had unintended conse- quences;
distributing condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a brothel area ended up
creating a higher price for unprotected sex.

For more details:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/
opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html?
nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130 727&_r=1&

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The Future of Food Aid

By the end of the next decade food security could deteriorate in some of
the world’s poorest countries, according to a recent global fore- cast by
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

By 2023 the number of food- insecure people is likely to increase by nearly
23 percent to 868 million (at a slightly faster rate than pro- jected
population growth of 16 percent), said USDA’s Economic Research Service
which focused on 76 low- and middle-income coun- tries classified by the
World Bank as being on food aid, experiencing food insecurity, or as having
expe- rienced it.

In countries most likely to see a significant rise in the number of
food-insecure people, such as Mala- wi and Uganda, the production and
import of food will not be able to keep pace with population growth.
Despite improvements over the years, sub-Saharan Africa is pro- jected to
remain the most food- insecure region in the world.

In the past decade global food aid, including the amount making its way to
sub-Saharan Africa, has been on a downward trend. Only 2.5 million tons
reached sub- Saharan Africa in 2011, whereas during the decade as a whole
it ranged from just under three mil lion tons to just over 5 million tons,
according to USDA, citing World Food Programme (WFP) data.

The face of food aid has also begun to change. In the past decade, “food
aid” has begun to evolve into “food assistance”, which includes help
provided in the form of cash and vouchers for people in need. This can save
millions of dollars in transportation and storage costs.

For more details:

http://m.irinnews.org/ Report/98469/Analysis-The-future-of-food-aid#.Ui4dYJKvN8E

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UN HR Council Resolution on Access to Medicines

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution
“Access to medi- cines in the context of the right of everyone to the
enjoyment of the highest attainable stand- ard of physical and mental
health “urging the member countries to develop a policy framework on
medicines en- couraging local production of medicines with the aim of en-
suring long-term accessibility and affordability of medicines.

The resolution also referred to use provisions of the Agree- ment on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights which provide
flexibility, recog- nizing that the protection of intellectual property is
im- portant for the development of new medicines, as well as the concerns
about its effects on prices. It also impressed on voluntary transfer of
technology to developing countries and delinkage of the costs of re search
and development and the price of health products.

For more details:

http:// donttradeourlive- saway.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/un-human-

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Global Health Versus Private Profit

John Lister is well-known as a researcher, writer and campaigner against
cutbacks and privatization in the NHS. But his new book Global Health
Versus Private Profit focus- es on the changes taking place in global
health care systems. It has received glowing endorsements from a number of
specialists in the field, and described as “penetrating, highly readable,
and extremely well researched”. We caught up with John and asked him to
talk about the book.

Can you sum up the book’s main point in two sentences?

Market-style reforms result in health care systems that are more unequal,
more costly, more frag- mented and less accountable – but which offer more
profits to the private sector. That’s why the question really is whether we
want to see global health – or private profit.

Who will be interested in reading the book?

This book is for all those working to achieve universal access to health
care, and anyone interested in the evolution of international health and
the different ways in which the I also hope it might be read by some of the
people work- ing for the institutions assessed in the book including the
WHO, World Bank (and especially IFC), for national health care systems and
for NGOs and donor agen- cies. My analysis is based on re- search,
analysis, literature and evidence, and I would be delighted to see a debate
on issues which people find contentious.

For more details:

http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?
utm_source=Global+Health+Check&utm_campaign=e1dba51e92- Glob-
al+Health+Check+email&utm_medium
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