Coronavirus vaccination programmes in the poorest countries are way behind those of the rich countries. 20% of the world‚’s population live in the 50 poorest countries where the GDP per head is around ¬£2,000 pa. Another 20% of the world‚’s population live in the 50 richest countries where the GDP per head is around ¬£52,000 pa. Foreign aid is fragmented, subject to being siphoned off by corrupt politicians and ineffective. We could do it much better. If each poor country had a coherent development plan, we could bring the living standards of all of them up to those of, say, Thailand within 25 years.
Rich countries can end extreme poverty by spending their committed 0.7% of GNP more wisely. One way for this to happen is for the UN to co-ordinate a major campaign. But the UK could help kick start such a campaign by focusing now all of its .7% of GNP on one country ‚’ say Tanzania which has a similar sized population to that of the UK.
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