MILITARY SPENDING AND HUMANITARIAN SPENDING: KEEPING THE BALANCE

MILITARY SPENDING AND HUMANITARIAN SPENDING: KEEPING THE BALANCE

If you wake tomorrow morning and the first thing you will hear on the news is “The most wanted man in the world Osama Bin Laden Captured”, and another that says “ Cure for AIDS and it Vaccine found and also an effective Vaccine for Malaria developed”, be sincere with yourself which of these two news items will you celebrate more? Granted the two items are worth celebrating but if a poll is to be taking all over the world the news on the great terrorist Osama Bin Laden will receive the greatest celebration. Except if we don’t want to face it, the world powers are spending more on military than on humanitarian problems. We spend so much on war prevention, terrorism and military activities but spent little on humanitarian efforts.

The world is making progress in its fight against terrorism and other forms of war but very little progress in it fight against killer diseases ravaging the world. These imbalances are what are I will like to call the fundamental form of international selfishness. The number of people who have died from preventable turned killer diseases are far greater than the number of people killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined till now. A case example is the Influenza epidemic of 1919 which killed more people than the two world wars combined worst still the epidemic was but rather on a small scale before the outbreak of the first world war but it was given little or no attention because they were busy preparing for war until it struck the world mercilessly. Have the world change? Absolutely No!

There are six killer diseases ravaging our world with no know solutions that are still existing largely because of the world ineptitude towards fighting them. They keep killing people more than any wars ever experienced on the face of this planet yet the world despite knowing that kept spending on preventing and fighting wars instead of focusing on preventing and halting the ever increasing onslaught of these diseases. HIV/AIDS kills more than three million people every year, Diarrhoea kills more than two million annually, Malaria accounted for almost two million victims every year and worst still most of it’s victims are children, Measles account for over half a million per year, Pneumonia killed about two million children under the age of five every year and lastly Tuberculosis caused the death of over 1.5 million people every year. These diseases put together had killed an approximately half a billion people since the beginning of the twentieth century. To face reality these six undefeated foes still exist because the world want them to continue existing.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria established in 2004 asked the world governments for $13 billion to help curb these three major epidemics. Total pledges for this fund have so far been way short of the targeted amount, while annually worldwide military spending reached an estimated $700 billion! If 20% per cent of this spending on Military were spent on the fight against these killer diseases the death rate will be drastically reduced. Sadly, in today’s divided world, few threats are capable of uniting all nations for the common good. Even with the best of intentions, health authorities and Scientists always find themselves handicapped in their fight against those infectious diseases; world government may not provide the necessary money. The Alma-Ata Declaration of September 12, 1978 state that “All countries should cooperate in a spirit of partnership and service to ensure primary health care for all people since the attainment of health by people in any one country directly concerns and benefits every other country.” But what has been the world response toward this declaration? The follow up by the world on this declaration has been highly disappointing. Health care is by no means universal and infectious disease still threaten the health of billions of people on earth and they often strike down children as well as adults in the prime of life while governments keep spending billions of dollars on wars and terrorism.

How then do we keep the balance in check on our spending and effort for a better world? Nobody is denying the fact that the fight against terrorism and war prevention effort are for the development of the world but neglecting other equally important world developmental problems for military problems is unacceptable. Fighting for world peace through military spending and fighting to bring the spread of killer diseases to a halt are equally important. If there is war, new diseases might emerge and nobody will like that to happen and equally if diseases continue to ravage us the world economy will suffer. Therefore, governments need to realise that the more they spend for military the more they should spend for humanitarian effort like the fight against the world killer diseases. Take the case of ARV’s for HIV victims for example, if the world is serious about providing ARV’s for most of the victims and reducing the date rate why should the governments and the manufacturing companies be selling ARV’s drugs to the developing world who are the most affected.

All that health authorities, scientists and the world in general need to have an headway in the effective fight against killers diseases and other humanitarian problems confronting the world is for the governments to pump at least one third of what they are currently spending on military activities. They will see the result; it is clear that the only problem hindering our effort in eradicating diseases and other humanitarian problems as fund. If the funds can be provided there will definitely be a lot of progress in the world effort to stop theses killer diseases, is as simple as that.

234-8051066634

tomak83@yahoo.co.uk