Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (“Foreign aid can be effective without the US”, Opinion, March 6) are correct to argue that the principle that human lives matter does not in itself justify the aid industry in its current form.
While laudable, the conflicting priorities facing donors these days means what is required is a much more multi-faceted approach, backed by robust data.
According to such an approach, an initiative that generates irrefutable evidence of lives saved, poverty alleviated or another important cause should rightly continue to secure funding. However other criteria, such as direct benefits to the donor (through soft power or otherwise), an exit strategy and the ability to generate wider good should also be taken into account.
Gavi, the vaccine alliance which I lead, asks countries to pay more towards their immunisation programmes as incomes increase, and thus has a clear ambition to one day put itself out of business.
Through Gavi’s model, 19 countries now fully fund their own vaccine programmes while $250bn of economic benefits have been generated since 2000 for poorer countries as a result of children growing up to lead healthy, productive lives. With a return on investment of $54 for every dollar invested, our model may even turn heads in Silicon Valley.
Dr Sania Nishtar
Chief Executive, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Geneva, Switzerland
