What Bill Gates is doing is a very humane and wonderful human gesture.
But in my humble opinion, he's going about it the wrong way.
Child mortality, malnutrition, and other preventable diseases are rife in SubSaharan Africa because of poor governance and weak to non-existent civic institutions. No democracy has every suffered a famine.
By focusing on treating a symptom - child mortality - Gates is patching. What happens when that child reaches school-age? Sure, there were resources to help the child past infancy, and then? Will Gates also fund: primary school, secondary school, and healthcare until that child reaches adulthood too?
And once they reach adulthood, what sort of jobs / life can the individual build? Most decide to emigrate to Europe. So I guess you could say that EU's taxpayers take care of that...
Short-term measures are necessary - who can deny a child healthcare? But a sustainable long-term solution is needed. Gates can start by financing newspapers, basic infrastructure, and financing parties that support the rule of law.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 7.9 ms ] threadBut in my humble opinion, he's going about it the wrong way.
Child mortality, malnutrition, and other preventable diseases are rife in SubSaharan Africa because of poor governance and weak to non-existent civic institutions. No democracy has every suffered a famine.
By focusing on treating a symptom - child mortality - Gates is patching. What happens when that child reaches school-age? Sure, there were resources to help the child past infancy, and then? Will Gates also fund: primary school, secondary school, and healthcare until that child reaches adulthood too?
And once they reach adulthood, what sort of jobs / life can the individual build? Most decide to emigrate to Europe. So I guess you could say that EU's taxpayers take care of that...
Short-term measures are necessary - who can deny a child healthcare? But a sustainable long-term solution is needed. Gates can start by financing newspapers, basic infrastructure, and financing parties that support the rule of law.