Novartis Foundation: Heated debate as annual meeting addresses “smartest” way to end global poverty
December 11, 2006 - Is international development cooperation a waste of taxpayers' money? And, if not, how can we ensure that desperately-needed international aid funds actually reach the people who need them? That was the essence of the often heated debate at this year's annual symposium of the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development in Basel.
Speakers at the annual meeting, which attracted a near-record participation of about 600 people, vividly highlighted the difficulty of finding common ground on one of the more controversial subjects in international politics. One of the main points at issue was the question of who is really to blame for the ongoing poverty and misery of hundreds of millions of people particularly in sub-Saharan Africa: corrupt governments, tropical disease, drought, crop failure, trade policy - or development aid itself?
The first guest speaker, leading Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwemba, generated a lively political debate with his controversial plea to end international development assistance. Arguing that financial aid flows to developing world governments simply encouraged institutional corruption, Mwenda - political editor of the Ugandan “Daily Monitor” newspaper - told participants: “More money is not necessarily the best way to combat poverty; capital is a by-product and not the root of the development process.”
Taking the argument a step further, Mwenda said all previous efforts to improve development aid mechanisms had failed, because “precisely this aid is part of the problem.” He said international aid today was given on the “wrong assumption” that it reached the people who needed it, whereas most of it ended up “in the pockets of politicians.” Mwenda concluded that the main challenge facing Africa today was not to help the poor, but to create an environment that encouraged capitalist growth.
Speaking immediately afterwards, renowned development economist Jeffrey Sachs strongly disagreed with Mwenda's conclusions, saying the real barrier to progress was not misuse of donor money but the continuing lack of anything approaching sufficient funding. The director of the UN Millennium Project and author of the best-selling book “The End of Poverty” argued that Africa would need some USD 75 billion per year in order to reach a level from which it could generate sustainable growth - but currently received only one third of that amount. He added: “We don't have to give money directly to governments; we're smarter than that. Villagers don't need money either, they need bed nets and essential medicines… and bed nets don't end up in safe deposit boxes.”
Sachs also stressed the relatively small amounts of money required to fund “practicable, workable solutions” and argued strongly for direct aid to local-level projects - particularly in the field of healthcare projects and access to medicine. He praised the role played by companies such as Novartis in helping to improve access to essential medicines, particularly Coartem, which he described as “the best anti-malarial drug there is,” but pointed out that substandard infrastructure and logistics still often prevented essential supplies actually getting to the people who need them most.
Walter Fust, director-general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), stressed that, while poverty eradication is a key goal, long-term development policy should also address more general global problems. Fust argued against politically-motivated simplifications of complex issues and pointed out that critics of development aid to Africa often overlooked the huge increase in the continent's population - from about 250 million people in 1950 to some 850 million today.
Mechai Viravaidya, founder of the Population and Community Development Association in Thailand, also proposed rethinking current approaches. He said poor people worldwide required two things to succeed - business skills and access to credit. The private sector was often better placed than governments to provide such aid, by taking advantage of “latent resources” such as employees' experience and ideas. Viravaidya cited a project in Thailand, the Novartis Village Development Partnership, under which employees could take 60 days off per year to work on development projects.
Klaus M. Leisinger, President and CEO of the Novartis Foundation, acknowledged the often profound political differences but said “business as usual” would lead to increasingly unacceptable economic, social, ecological and political inequality. He cited the key recommendations of the 1998 World Bank report on the effectiveness of development assistance, which he said remain as valid today as ever - aid should become more selective, more knowledge-based, better coordinated and more self-critical.