12.07.2015 Views

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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THE INTERNATIONAL AID SYSTEMA few years ago, vacancies for nursing posts in Malawi were running a<strong>to</strong>ver 60 per cent, and large swathes of the country had no doc<strong>to</strong>rs at all.Low pay and poor working conditions were driving staff away at analarming rate, <strong>to</strong> work for NGOs, private hospitals, or in other sec<strong>to</strong>rsal<strong>to</strong>gether – or even <strong>to</strong> migrate overseas.This seemingly intractable crisis, familiar <strong>to</strong> most developingcountries and some rich ones as well, was transformed by a judiciousinflux of aid. With 90 per cent funding from the UK and the GlobalFund <strong>to</strong> Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Malawi’s Ministry ofHealth increased salaries by 50 per cent for 5,400 front-line healthworkers, recruited 700 new health staff, expanded and improvedtraining schools, and plugged critical gaps with expatriate volunteers.‘In 2003, resignations of nurses were at one or even two a week.It was shocking’, said Dr Damison Kathyola, direc<strong>to</strong>r of KamuzuCentral Hospital in the Malawian capital Lilongwe.‘Since we introducedincentives, we’ve somehow stemmed it <strong>to</strong> one or two a month.’ 121Aid from rich countries <strong>to</strong> poor ones can relieve poverty and suffering,fund the clean water and millions of teachers and health workersthat poor countries need, and provide an injection of capital andknow-how <strong>to</strong> help kick-start economic growth. Aid’s most tangiblesuccesses have been in health, where vaccinations have eradicatedsmallpox and have saved 7.5 million lives from 1999–2005 simplyby halving deaths from measles. 122353

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