Bill Gates Argues for Aid as Investment, Even in Tough Times

William, run a comb through that hair!

"A few years ago," says Bill Gates, "Warren Buffett suggested that I start writing a letter every year. He has really enjoyed writing his letter to shareholders, and he thought I should do something similar to help people understand what the Gates Foundation was up to."

Thus we have the third annual Letter from Bill (pdf). In his 2011 epistle, Gates is determined not to let wealthier countries use economic decline as a reason to stint on foreign aid. "Whether you think it’s an issue of morality or enlightened self-interest, aid spending is uniquely effective spending, and I wanted to give some examples," Gates writes.

His examples are largely to do with medical progress--vaccines for polio (cases of sustained transmission are now contained to just four countries) and malaria: "Of the 99 countries with malaria, 43 have decreased cases of the disease by more than 50 percent." He notes that in the past ten year, the rate of HIV infection has been reduced almost 20 percent (though that's still almost 2.7 million infections per year). Meanwhile, deaths from AIDS are now fewer than 2 million annually, also a 20 percent reduction. 

But his underlying point is that however much prevention and eradication costs, it's much, much cheaper than the cost of ongoing treatment for these diseases. There is also the loss in human potential because of disease-inflicted damage, leaving countries with less healthy residents, mentally and physically. And Gates points out that over-population is in part driven by birth rates themselves driven by high infant and childhood mortality. 

Though all of this is couched in terms of foreign aid, it's unsettlingly relevant to Washington state, as our leadership ponders slashing just those kinds of health and wellness programs that offer services to the most needy. As you can read at Crosscut, Governor "Gregoire, an advocate of universal health coverage, has proposed eliminating the state’s 17-year-old Basic Health Plan, an affordable health insurance program for working-poor families with incomes at 133-200 percent of the federal poverty level."

The Seattle Times reports layoffs have hit "Maternity Support Services, a program that works to improve infant survival and health among 30,000 low-income women and babies," an area that Gates specifically calls out in his letter as essential to fund...at least in Africa. Seattle & King County Public Health "has eliminated immunization clinics, child-care nurse visits outside Seattle and outreach to homeless pregnant women with alcohol or drug problems...." 

In a perhaps not-unrelated development, "Region sees sharp rise in whooping cough cases," with 33 infants requiring hospitalization and two dying. 

Maybe Bill can drop in on Olympia with his message, as well as Davos.