In a recent posting at Aid Watch, William Easterly makes the very good point that we could help the poor more if we were to bypass dubious charitable scheme like Product Red. William Easterly points out that if you really want to support altruistic causes, you should do it directly rather than paying the business man and tipping the poor.

The question Easterly does not answer is why don’t we send our bucks or quids straight to the Global Fund instead of spending them at Starbucks?
Guilt, the one we feel knowing …

Having asked who should get the dosh, it would be useful to look back at who got it so far. For many years, the fight against HIV and AIDS was not a cause attracting a lot of financial attention within developed countries. It is not until the 2000 international AIDS conference in Durban that the issue of “universal access” to treatment and prevention and the creation of the Gates Foundation and the Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program (MAP) that investment started to flow from rich to poor countries.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

“A tiny group of Republican senators continues to block a vote on an important bill to increase American spending on AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world” i.e. PEPFAR.
Republicans opposing the re-authorisation of PEPFAR have done so on different grounds. A recurring argument being the cost of the President’s plan which, lest we forget represents less than 1.5% of the cost of the Iraq war. Another argument is the elimination of the statutory ban on admitting people infected with the HIV virus into the US, putting the country on …

Today the U.S. Government, through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), announced that it is supporting life-saving antiretroviral treatment for approximately 1.73 million men, women and children worldwide, including nearly 1.68 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rating 3.00 out of 5