I watched some of the telethon last night and was impressed by the amounts of money being raised. The entertainment was a little less to my taste, but I suppose you can’t please everybody, so the aim is to attract as many as possible.
The worldwide response to the tsunami disaster has been equally impressive, though no more than was merited by a tragedy on such a large scale. But tsunamis are not the only disaster affecting humanity. Preventable diseases kill millions every year, and the disability caused by diseases like malaria is a huge drain on economic growth in many poor countries. For $US50 billion a year, we could implement the program proposed by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health which would, quite literally, save millions of lives. Based on our share of developed-country GDP, Australia’s share of this would be only about $1 billion. The US could finance the entire program with the money currently being spent in Iraq. Europe and Japan could easily meet their shares by scrapping farm policies that harm both domestic consumers and poor farmers in less developed countries. Or the whole thing could be done out of private donations of around fifty dollars per person per year – well below one per cent of personal income.
If we could only make the kind of concern that’s been displayed over the past couple of weeks a permanent feature of our personal and political priorities, the world would be a much better place.
Update Reader and Uni of Maryland colleague Darrell Hueth points me to this piece by Nicholas Kristof arguing that the use of DDT in anti-malarial programs should be expanded. This issue has been debated at length on this blog, and I think Kristof gets the balance abotu right. Also, if you’re interested in an economic take on the costs and benefits of malaria prevention, the chapter by Mills and Shilcutt in Bjorn Lomborg’s book Global Crises, Global Solutions , coming out of his Copenhagen Consensus exercise, is well worth reading[1].
fn1. As I’ve previously observed, the Copenhagen Consensus, considered as a ranking exercise purporting to private that action to mitigate global warming is a bad idea, was a dishonest political stunt. But a lot of resources went into it and they weren’t all wasted.
John Quiggin 
Well said Pro. J
As the world seems to be heading in the direction of multi-polarity, the voices of the 3rd world may be heard more loudly. I have a certain faith in ”Old Europe” being more assertive on security issues given the recent Iranian deal (ironic that the UK can be partially classified as ”Old Europe” n’est pas?) Those security issues also embrace the South with its endemic poverty and WTO disadvantages which must be addressed.
Actually I’d have thought that multipolarity means that the 3rd world will be thought about less as the “other poles” hog the scene. Unless of course you’re advocating a return to 19th century competitive colonisation.
What I mean by multi-polarity is the EU+Russia, China/Asian and South American blocks returning to multilateralism in a new form with the US as merely one block among many. Recent EU assertiveness is my example of the posited paradigm and dawning realisation of the necessity to iron out problems of the periphery, ie 3rd world and middle east , which will determine actual world security in the future. Forgiveness of debt seems to be one aspect of the re-ordering process and European responses to the tsunami disaster are most encouraging.
Call me an optimist but perhaps Europe understands that getting its own house in order (10 new members of EU), telling the US to jump in the lake, is a way of demonstrating leadership that the world’s problems cannot be solved by force but by reason, dialogue and multilateralism.
Absolutely JQ…. where do all these people who are currently opening their pockets generously go whenever slightly less immediate / newsworthy disasters unfold?
Should we blame the mainstream media? Imagine if the media embraced the issue of extreme poverty in Africa and the Indian sub-continent with the same gusto as it has the Asian tsunami crisis!
Not the media’s fault. We all lose interest and tire of the images. In fact, I’m surprised we’ve remained observant for so long. Wonder whether we’ll be caring this time next week?