Our vital contribution to the Global Poor

Consider: You are on your way to Maths and Stats and you spot a young child drowning in a shallow pond. Ought you to wade in and pull the child out? Whilst wading in and saving the child would mean arriving late to the lecture, this is surely insignificant compared to the life of the drowning child? If we are able to save the drowning child without significant cost, we should. However, the fact that 30,000 children die each day from avoidable causes whilst many millions live in unimaginable wealth suggests that the global rich are failing in their duty to wade in and save the drowning children.

This fact has led to the emergence of two distinct positions. On the one hand there are those that accept this line of reasoning and have pushed for issues of global poverty to be higher on the political agenda and, on the other hand, are those who have sought to question whether the global rich really can make a difference given problems of corruption. This week saw the Brasenose-educated David Cameron declare his allegiance to the former position with the announcement that the government would finance over 80 million vaccinations globally at a cost to the UK taxpayer of £814 million.

This announcement may come as a surprise to those who associate the Tories with those donation-sceptics who claim that the inefficiency associated with foreign aid means that the money is better spent improving the life chances of Britain’s most socially disadvantaged. However, it is important to note that, whilst the government’s decision may very likely come under scrutiny from Tory backbenchers, the policy should be seen as fitting within the wider ideal of “We’re all in this together!”.

The “big society” motivation behind the government’s new proposals can, I think, be seen in three distinct areas. Firstly, the government, through increasing its expenditure on vaccinations for the global poor, has become a flagship of foreign aid which has shamed other countries into increasing their donations. This was observed in the case of Australia which substantially increased its pledge to fund vaccinations to £91 million and thus this move represents some progress in the positioning of global poverty on the global political agenda.
Secondly, it could be claimed that Cameron’s big society regime has had some impact upon the pharmaceutical industry itself. Last week, GlaxoSmithKline, conventionally not regarded to be the most philanthropic organisation, announced that it would start selling some AIDS drugs to the world’s poorest countries at cost price. It is, of course, controversial to claim that these prices drops are a result of the big society mentality rather than being a response to the increased competition that has emerged from developing economies such as India and China. Nonetheless, the point remains that in a market that has had its fair share of controversy, a price reduction is certainly an achievement.

Finally – and, I think, most importantly – the government’s pledge, in ensuring that issues of global justice are given some air time, has, I hope, heightened the public’s awareness to global issues. Here, the pledge to donate £814 million should be seen as a terrific achievement for disease prevention, nonetheless, measuring the success of this policy also requires investigating the extent to which the public embrace this move and accept our responsibility to live as active global citizens. Let’s hope that this move goes some way in institutionalising an ethos in which individuals will wade in and save the lives of drowning children.