Resource allocation and health financing

In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, Corporate Watch reports that Gates Foundation provides 5% of its worth annually as grants for health initiatives, public education and social welfare and invests the other 95% of its worth. The investigation found investments in companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices. Corporate Watch outlines those investments that appear to contradict the foundations grant support goals and the feedback obtained from the Gates Foundation on the findings.

For the past two decades the informal sector has grown very rapidly in Tanzania. In the early 1990s it was estimated to be contributing about 60% of the country's GDP. Some authorities even believe that this figure is an underestimate. This sector provides a "safety net" to many women and youth in the country. Its role in providing for livelihood is becoming more important as the formal sector shrinks due to retrenchment. This feasibility study aimed at assessing how and under what conditions the outputs produced and the activities deployed by the ILO project on social security for the informal sector will contribute to the establishment of a social security system in the two areas. The main emphasis for this study was the establishment of health insurance schemes in the identified areas, i.e., Mbeya and Arusha.

Warren Buffett’s donation in early July of $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has fed many hopes and expectations. How are we to regard the creation by these extremely rich families of the world’s largest foundation, with resources of over $62 billion at their disposal? On one level, their philanthropy must of course be warmly welcomed. [Yet] this display of unprecedented generosity raises some serious questions about the way we think nowadays about issues such as altruism versus public action, and charity versus human rights. First, private altruism by the rich does not get governments off the hook. Second, in any case, for the poorest countries and the poorest people in any country, escaping poverty is not a matter for charity and altruism. It is an issue of social justice.

A rise of more than 100 percent in the price of antiretroviral drugs is likely to put the life-prolonging medication beyond the reach of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living with HIV. Pharmacists in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo increased the price of a monthly course of ARVs from an average of Z$30,000 (US$120 at the official exchange rate) to between Z$80,000 (US$320) and Z$100,000 (US$400), telling IRIN the price hike was an inevitable response to the country's economic woes, which has seen inflation surge to 1,281 percent, and foreign currency become a scarce item.