Health workers appeal to donors for life-saving vaccines (Feature)

By Shabtai Gold Mar 27, 2010, 3:06 GMT

The Hague - Funding for humanitarian aid has in recent years taken a twist, as donors are increasingly demanding both an immediate impact and a long-term return on their investment.

If the people found recently wringing their hands and nervously pacing inside a Dutch hotel lobby are correct, one way to win both battles at once is through immunizations.

The executives of GAVI - an alliance of charities, governments and private sector health-care companies - were in full lobby mode, working to convince big Western donors to put their money into inoculations for dangerous diseases.

In their minds, it is the only way to avoid easily preventable deaths.

'We are providing an opportunity to million of kids to live,' Graca Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique and a global humanitarian, said.

Machel, the wife of South African liberation hero Nelson Mandela, delivered a rousing appeal to donors gathered in The Hague, telling them about the world's poor who still die of diseases eradicated in the developed world.

'It's a waste of human lives which can be prevented with comparably very little investment,' Machel said in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

The points of the debate, however, extend ever further.

In the current tough financial times and after years of doling out aid, donors want to do more than save a life - they want to know what type of life will be led.

GAVI official Judith Kallenberg was straightforward about their aims: 'We are creating a healthy workforce that can generate wealth for the economy.'

For Machel, a child can only become a productive member of society if it lives.

'For kids to be able to go to school, they must survive,' she insisted.

GAVI said it has used 4 billion dollars over the last decade to immunize 250 million children in the world's poorest regions, saving an estimated 5.4 million lives.

It now needs to convince governments they should hand over 4.3 billion more over the next 5 years to save another 4.2 million lives.

The large donations would also go towards introducing vaccines for the worst triggers of pneumonia and diarrhea, major killers in the developing world, and diseases that prevent overall development.

'If these vaccines are not introduced soon, developing countries like mine will not reduce child mortality by two-thirds,' said Mali's Health Minister, Oumar Ibrahima Toure.

Ten years ago, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to the Millennium Development Goals, which included the key task of drastically cutting preventable children's deaths by 2015. That schedule is now looking tight.

The Dutch government convened the reclusive meeting in The Hague of key donor countries - mostly from North America and Europe - to hear about the massive funding needed to match those grand ambitions.

Studies, presented by GAVI, indicated that by lowering the child mortality rate, families feel more secure.

The impact over time - within one or two generations - is also shrinking population growth rates in the developing world, which in turn help education, health, nutrition and other programmes make a bigger difference.

Donors want to know that their help will not be needed forever and that today's poor will take the aid to eventually stand on their own feet.

One success story is China, whose emerging economy has risen at an astronomical rate. It once was a recipient of aid, including vaccines from GAVI.

At the recent meeting in The Hague, Chinese officials quietly gathered around the table with major economies to hear about GAVI's funding needs.

While no direct commitments were forthcoming, Beijing may soon be giving cash to the organization from whom it once received assistance.

Eventually, Machel and others in her camp believe, breaking the cycle of poverty is a key step in creating a more equitable global society. Only healthy children can step out of the shadows of their past, they say.

'Immunization helps the world be more equal,' Machel said. 'This is the moral challenge for all of us.'