It’s been 40 years since the charity song “We are the World” brought together many pop singers to raise awareness about drought and famine in Ethiopia – something that was brought back to mind recently on Netflix. Pop’s Biggest Night documentary, which was about the night it was recorded. The release of the song was followed by a hilarious video, which brought heartbreaking images of starving African children, with their bloated bellies and empty eyes, into American living rooms. . That spurred soaring sales, which translated into tens of millions of dollars in donations.
Since then, with the help of wealthy nations and philanthropic organizations, there have been many gains in global efforts to improve the health of the world’s children. Between 2000 and 2020, for example, child mortality has decreased by 50% as has the prevalence of infectious diseases. The areas that suffered the most, including sub-Saharan Africa, have seen the greatest improvement.
But attention was diverted—and with it, help. Now, progress has been stubbornly stalled, according to a new report released today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And the children are paying the price.
UNICEF estimates that more than 400 million children—two-thirds of the world’s children—are at risk of malnutrition, meaning that even children with access to food may they don’t get enough nutrients from what they get.
Malnutrition has serious consequences for children. It increases the chances of contracting common diseases and increases the risk of dying from them. Malnutrition can cause blindness, soft bones, stunted growth, and is responsible for half of all diseases in children under 5. Malnourished children do not do well in school, ultimately they earn less than well-fed peers, and are less likely to escape. poverty.
And climate change will only exacerbate the problem, as the foundation points out in their annual Goalkeepers report, which tracks progress towards achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals.
More than half of all child deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and the number of people living in extreme poverty there is increasing. However, the share of total aid to Africa has fallen to a 20-year low.
The report calls for the return of global health aid and special attention to child malnutrition. There are key elements of several “scalable” solutions that include agricultural technology that will result in cows that produce more nutrient-dense milk, fortifying daily foods such as salt and flour, and increase access to prenatal vitamins.
In conversation with Good luckGates explains why he calls malnutrition “the world’s worst child health problem.” He also talks about the economic impact of poverty—as well as his thoughts on how to get the world to pay more attention.
LUCK: Can you expand on the link between malnutrition and financial deficits? What are the economic consequences of malnutrition?
Bill Gates: There is something called the poverty trap, where, if you are poor enough, you cannot invest in roads and better seeds and fertilizers, and your child’s food is very poor, because of not get the vitamins … the protein they need, that their physical and mental strength is below their capacity. And in Africa, you have countries where 40% of children-due to poor brain development driven by malnutrition, even if you invest in their education-cannot contribute to the economy.
It’s very generational. The child you don’t feed today is your job tomorrow. It’s not like if you improve nutrition, you know, six months later, your economy starts to grow. Because unfortunately, if you are malnourished before the age of 5, you will never recover. If you are disabled at the age of 5, you will be disabled for the rest of your life.
This is a valuable resource for the future. What the foundation sees is that by helping with health in many ways—vaccines, whatever, and malnutrition has been a very important part of that—you can break that poverty trap. You can make those children healthy. That’s why help can help you out of that.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
LUCKNOW: Why did aid to Africa drop so dramatically?
Bill Gates: Starting around 2000 and the beginning of this epidemic, I can say that the community – we are only one part of that – we have done a good job in finding food shortages in Africa and health problems in Africa, including malaria. program. President Bush of the United States created PEPFAR [to address the global AIDS epidemic]which also led to the creation of the Global Fund. At the turn of the century, aid levels went up…and we’ve maintained that.
Will it go down, or will it go up? Maybe that’s hanging to some extent, but we’ve been able to get those vaccines to children in poor countries, and reduce the under-5 death rate from 10 million a year to 5 million per year. And now we find ourselves saying, “Wow, why are we on this plateau?” No, the plague, the fact that it disrupted these things, makes sense. But we also find ourselves with these African countries that are heavily indebted and paying very high interest rates, so much less of their tax collection goes to interest payments than to a combination of health and education. So that stands in the way of the magical process that I talked about the last time this happened, around the turn of the century: There was debt relief, and Africa was the main beneficiary of that debt relief.
Can we get on the show…to do that again? I don’t know if we can. We should. And you know, it will take a broad community. The Gates Foundation is just a small, small part of it. Is there a movement among voters to take the need for behavior here and commit to returning 1 to 2% of the budget that goes to these causes of aid, including stopping health and debt relief, even some for the education we actually do. need?
LUCK: In the report, you write about the world needing to recommit to the work that drove progress in the early 2000s. How will you get the whole world on board?
Gates: When things are over in Africa, they are far away. And if the way you start that message is, “Boy, we’re going to hurt you about how bad things are in Africa,” you know, it’s not so good. It’s this balanced message where you say, “We’ve made great progress,” that you know, the kids are still alive. And, the money has been very well spent, and people should feel proud of that. However, there is more to be done.
Wealthy global funds are transferred more because you have this desire to spend more on self-defense and more on the health of the elderly and more on pensions because of the age structure. You want to spend more money on almost everything. And so even if it’s only 1 to 2% that saves a life, you know, for 1,000th of what you use at home to save a life, it doesn’t stand up well, because it’s far away. And if public organizations have other issues that are causing these issues to persist, then we may see cuts.
LUCKNOW: How is your elevator pitch to lift the world?
Gates: It’s hard in the elevator. Do you hit people with “Do you care kids die?” Well, that’s a heavy hand. Do you have pictures of dying children? I haven’t tried that, but I doubt that would work.
What are the possible angles? If you are a health worker, [maybe it’s] the idea that some children do not get the measles vaccine. Measles is a truly terrible disease. If you are religious, does it help you that the poorest among them get help? Sometimes celebrities are involved, which helps. When I was in Nigeria, I was there with Jon Batiste. We think that thinking is powerful, but it’s a very crowded environment in terms of what people care about.
This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.
#Bill #Gates #todays #child #health #crisis #world #tomorrows #economic #crisis