AIDS and aid.

Two emails from readers about BBC coverage of African issues follow.

Karim Bakhtiar of the uncompromising new blog Nuke Labour writes:

Hi Natalie,

I came across the following example of BBC anti-private-sector pro-government pro-NGO bias.

Channel: BBC News 24

Programme: Reporters

Date: 12th June 2005

Time: 10:40 UK time

“Nomsa is HIV positive. Last year, feeling sick, she bought ARVs [Anti-retroviral drugs] from a private doctor, who didn’t have the correct combination of drugs in stock. Nomsa did not recover. Worse, by starting on the wrong course, she may have built up resistance to the drugs, making it harder to treat her”
…

“Nomsa is now at the same clinic as Prudence [the main subject of the report] run by the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières. Soon she’ll know if she’s responding to treatment or if she’s resistant to drugs, in which case she might not survive.

The Médecins Sans Frontières (or MSF) clinic is receiving more and more patients who are buying the wrong Anti-retrovirals from private doctors.

MSF believes this is happening because the government has not moved fast enough to provide free drugs to the huge HIV positive population.”

A reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent this:

On the BBC website, the issue of aid to Africa is straightforward. (“Enough payback for Iraq?”) It’s those knights on white chargers Blair and Brown against that nasty Mr Bush. The good guys want to wave a magic wand and cancel debt relief, thereby allowing Africans to build hundreds of new schools and hospitals. Mr Nasty is sitting in his counting house saying ‘bah, humbug’ to everything and condemning millions to premature death and misery.

In contrast, the British press have discussed in depth why the US’s policy to Africa is, in fact, both generous and much more realistic in tying aid to specific projects, ánd why debt relief may not be the best way forward. For example, Bronwen Maddox in the Times (July 8) (“Why it’s wrong to paint America as hard-hearted”) neatly explained why the US was “much more generous than its critics often credit” and why President Bush is constrained from backing Brown’s International Finance Facility because of the US constitution, which prohibits long term commitment to such projects.

The website has oodles of uncritical references to Brown and Blair’s demands, but can only parody the US’s efforts as the world’s biggest spender on African aid. This is how the “objective” assessment on the website about the US approach concludes:

“Bush treads his own path on Africa”

It has to be remembered that there is a lot less political support for foreign aid in the US Congress – unless it is to support political allies like Israel.

Many Republicans are deeply sceptical of the UN institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, whom they suspect of inefficiency and corruption.

And with the growing fiscal deficit, many Democrats would argue that any spare cash should be spent on displaced US workers, not helping workers get jobs abroad.

And now that Mr Bush is essentially a lame-duck President, no longer facing re-election, he has even less clout with Congress, as both sides are positioning themselves for possible Presidential contests in 2008.

During the Cold War, US supported generous foreign aid, including the Marshall Plan, because it was seen as vital for US interests to strengthen its anti-communist allies.

Despite the war on terror, it is no longer clear that the US has the political will to tackle the growing gap between rich and poor countries.