“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.” That was Bill Gates’ stark assessment of the USAID cuts overseen by Elon Musk (Interview, FT.com, May 8; and “Gates doubles down”, The Big Read, May 9).
Sadly, the observation is not hyperbole. We now have the results from a cross-country analysis of the potential impact of USAID’s collision with Musk’s woodchipper. Conducted by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, the study models the impact of reduced aid financing on a range of public health outcomes, drawing on data from 133 countries. The results point to 14mn additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5mn children under the age of five. Most of those deaths will happen in Africa.
The numbers should not come as a surprise. USAID is the world’s largest source of global public health finance, saving millions of young lives each year from malnutrition, malaria, pneumonia, measles and other killer diseases. Aid cuts by the UK, France and Germany will inevitably compound the effects of USAID’s demise.
While I somehow doubt Musk is losing sleep over the consequences of his actions, the rest of us might reflect on the human faces behind the numbers.
These are the faces of children with curable pneumonia left gasping for air, of mothers unable to feed acutely malnourished children and of children living with HIV/Aids transmitted in the womb.
Looking for a rediscovery of empathy in the White House is a fool’s errand. But as collectively the largest shareholders in the World Bank, and with the financial replenishments of Gavi, the global vaccines initiative, and the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, malaria, and tuberculosis around the corner, Europe could — and should — step into the moral breach and demonstrate solidarity with the children whose lives are on the line.
Kevin Watkins
Former Chief Executive, Save the Children UK; Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, London School of Economics, London WC2, UK
