Feb 01, 2008

A Jump-Start Round-Up

by Laura Starita

After an extended holiday hiatus we are back with a round up of some worthwhile reads from the past month.

On Health:
The appeal and human necessity behind providing anti-retroviral therapy (ARVs) to people with late-stage AIDS is pretty inarguable. Like watching Lazarus rise, it appeals to our desire for miracles. Yet there are consequences, as articulated in a New York Times article profiling US Americans who have been living with AIDS and taking ARVs for a decade or more. The health problems they have developed as a consequence of long-term drug toxicity—liver complaints, diabetes, anal and rectal cancers, etc.—are in many ways worse than living with AIDS, the victims claim. Extrapolating the situation to developing economies, imagine the public health crises that could develop in ten years when people beginning ARVs today then need to be treated for cancer and renal failure with limited medical facilities. All the more incentive to crack the differential code on AIDS prevention so that the humanitarian community isn’t running in circles on treatment while the number of infected continues to climb.

Speaking of prevention, the Times also writes that the WHO reported a drop in malaria deaths in four African countries, a dynamic the organization attributes to widespread distribution of free, insecticide-treated bed nets and availability of arteminisin, the new malaria treatment. Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zambia, all of which saw dramatic declines, were the recipients of free bed nets and medicines sponsored by organizations such as The Global Fund. Ethiopia and Rwanda saw declines of 50 and 60 percent respectively, Zambia saw only 33 percent declines because of the scarcity of net and drug supplies. Curiously, Ghana also saw declines in childhood deaths over the same period comparable to those experienced by Rwanda despite the fact that it was not a recipient of the free materials. The article does not address why that might be the case, but the answer could provide interesting insights.

On Philanthropy:

Anonymity only comes cheap, it seems. That’s the message behind a recent Wall Street Journal piece documenting the increased pressure foundations and nonprofits are under to reveal the sources of their anonymous gifts. At the crossroads between calls for increased transparency in the nonprofit sector and donor desire to keep the focus on the recipient (whether for reasons of altruism, personal security or manipulation) this trend is causing some concern among industry insiders who claim that an absence of anonymity could motivate the very rich to give less.

But what if you are giving a part of yourself? It seems opportunities to do that will always be there, at least if you want to go into the Peace Corps, notes the Times. President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address called for an increase in the Corps and the organization has more recently responded by recruiting over-50’s. Experienced teachers, engineers and medical professionals are all in high demand for their expertise, which is farther reaching than that of the 20-somethings that have largely populated the Corps since the 60s.

The long-awaited announcement of priorities from Google.org also came in January. The philanthropic arm of the internet giant promises to give $175 million over the next three years. Its giving will focus on four areas, reported the Times: “predict and prevent” will concern itself with early detection infrastructure against epidemics or famine; the “missing middle” will address the wealth disparity seen in the developing world by helping, for example, small businesses expand markets and grow; “information for all” will help create more government transparency and accountability; and “renewable energy” will invest in cleaner alternatives to coal.

On Good Business
Corporate Social Responsibility has been a popular subject of late. Last month the Stanford Social Innovation Review produced a long article about the history of efforts by business to do good things for their employees and for the environment. Long and informative, the piece concludes by arguing that policies and guidelines should be formulated by turning to the experts in various fields: the Europeans for product safety and environmental regulation; NGOs for human rights, and the US for corporate governance.

That the poor don’t have need or desire for financial services is a pervasive fallacy. On the contrary, the poorest people even in the United States do use financial services, just not from a full service bank. Instead they rely on check-cashing services and same-day lending providers for their needs, often paying many times as much as they would if they had a bank account. In an effort to address the needs of the unbanked, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote a WSJ Op-Ed about an initiative in California to provide an incentive structure for banks to provide services to the unbanked, including bank accounts, small loans and other financial products. The effort aims to increase savings and financial stability among the country’s poorest.