UK Aid – a convincing case

This week we were reminded by one of the world’s leading businessmen and philanthropists that the UK Government and general public has a long and extraordinary record in terms of its support for the world’s poorest countries and communities. Support which has delivered tangible and considerable progress, none more so than in the fight against malaria which has seen child deaths in Sub Saharan Africa halved since 2000. When you’re talking about a disease that kills a child every minute, that is huge progress indeed.

At the event – The Case for Aid: A Conversation with Bill Gates hosted in the Queen’s Robing Room by the Lord Speaker –Bill Gates outlined his vision and ambition to end malaria within a generation, and he was clear that strong health systems, combined with a robust research and development pipeline, need to be two fundamental pillars of reaching this goal. As we are currently seeing in the countries affected by the Ebola crisis, already weak health systems have crumbled under the pressure of this deadly outbreak, highlighting their fragility and demonstrating how little it can take to bring about their near collapse. But on the other hand we know when countries have managed to overhaul their primary health care systems it has led to a dramatic decline in childhood deaths from preventable diseases like malaria and pneumonia. As Bill Gates has previously commented, health systems —which encompass everything from rural clinics to community health workers to hospitals — are the best protection against epidemics.

The Labour Party has called for universal health coverage and access to be placed at the centre of global development, yet the UK – the home of the NHS – is still opposing making universal health care and access an explicit goal at the UN, despite asking questions in the Lords I’m still waiting for the Government Front Bench to explain why.

The UK’s leading role in driving  global health innovation, research and development  was also lauded by Bill Gates – from the global renown of institutions like the Schools of Tropical Medicine in London and Liverpool, to UK pharmaceutical companies  delivering new,  exciting and potentially game-changing  research to further  global health efforts, including potentially the world’s first Ebola and malaria vaccines.  After all, investing in research has huge paybacks both in terms of improving human lives and reducing health costs.

So it’s clear we need research, we need development aid and we need to sustain our focus in order to achieve these ambitious goals – from ending malaria once and for all to driving down childhood deaths. This is something the UK is uniquely placed to support and something we can and must continue to deliver.

Lord Ray Collins of Highbury is Labour’s Lords Spokesperson for International Development