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Children’s health will worsen unless aid policies change

Simple preventable diseases will kill more, not fewer, of the world’s children by the end of this century unless international aid policies are changed, warns the Save the Children Fund.

‘The gap between rich and poor countries — and between rich and poor people in all countries — is widening’, according to Save the Children’s recent report Poor in health. The result is that ‘some 800 million people are now excluded from health care of any recognisable quality’.

In 1996 health care systems in many countries of the world are collapsing, Save the Children believes, and the aim of health for all has been effectively abandoned.

Even basic and highly effective programmes such as childhood immunisation are a major drain on the health budgets of some countries, such as Mozambique and Uganda.

International aid policy, led by the World Bank, is making matters worse by recommending that governments withdraw from areas which can be left to the private sector, thereby creating further inequality.

Save the Children are calling on the bank and other international agencies to work with, not against, the priorities and structures of poor countries. It says investment in the health systems of sub-Saharan Africa and the poorest countries of Asia is now urgent, and that community involvement in health services should be a priority.