The FT has a great special section on malaria today (tomorrow is World Malaria Day). Their very sensible editorial says: “…malaria is becoming an industry in its own right. That brings responsibilities, including rigorous evaluation to ensure money is well spent.” There are plenty of other grounds for hope, let’s hope also that somebody will step up to hold this industry accountable.
In another article, FT writer Andrew Jack quotes activist Louis da Gama: “The biggest problem has been lack of baseline data. The risk is that you underestimate the problem and overstate the success.” Unfortunately, a few paragraphs earlier, Mr. Jack repeats the old claim that Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Zambia have sharply reduced national mortality from malaria, which this blog pointed out was based on fake WHO data that the WHO subsequently withdrew. Even a second round of discussion on this blog did not suffice to clear this up, although the facts are not in dispute. Sigh.
A mass email went out to journalists yesterday from The Centre for Development and Population Activities: “Expert Refutes Bestselling “Dead Aid”; Available for Background and Interviews”. The available expert was Carol Peasley, President & CEO, The Centre for Development and Population Activities. Among the expert arguments refuting “Dead Aid” (from Peasley’s piece in the Huffington Post) was that “Child deaths [in Malawi] have been reduced by nearly 100 percent (from 221 per thousand in 1990 to 120 in 2007).” I guess the expertise being made available did not include math.
3 Comments
Good post, Bill. Do you know anything about the latest figure on malaria reduction in Zambia that’s been bandied around? (“Malaria deaths plunge by 66%”).
As you previously reported, the 2008 Malaria Report was blunt about the lac of reliable data in Zambia, so it would be interesting to know how robust these new stats are.
Keep up the good fight Bill. Down by 100%? This person must have been an economist!
I just read Mrs. Peasley’s full piece. It’s a joke of a argument. Anyone can give one good example when there are 100,000 cases of aid to choose from. We’re trying to look at the big picture here. She points out that the worst scenarios that Dead Aid points out were Cold War battle grounds. Who’s saying there isn’t just as much politics in today’s aid given.
She also says that so many countries getting aid back then had unstable gov’ts… NEWS FLASH, nothing has changed. More unstable gov’ts get aid than non-stable. This is another argument Dead Aid makes. Stable gov’ts and economies DON’T need aid to begin with.
This is frustrating beyond belief.
I wonder if there is one aid worker in the whole world who had read this book with an open mind. Lots of jobs are at stake.