Global health funding and economic development

The argument for investing in public health initiatives and infrastructure in poor countries as presented in this editorial is twofold. Firstly, an increase in funding to address easily preventable deaths in poor countries would be consistent with our collective moral inclination. We seem however to be paralyzed by collective and institutional decision-making that fails to reflect the values we hold as individuals. And secondly, funds provided for public health spending in poor countries may translate into economic gains exceeding the initial investment.About ten million children die in low-income countries, defined as gross national income (GNI) less than USD $1,005 using the World Bank Atlas Method, every year. Millions of deaths are easily preventable with relatively inexpensive medicines and simple interventions like providing access to bed nets and clean drinking water. Furthermore, more than a thousand women die every day from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth--99% of these are in developing countries. The list of alarming statistics goes on, but most startling is the extent to which global death and disability from preventable causes can be efficiently and cost-effectively mitigated if we only had the political will to do so.Well, what's stopping us? We propose that despite the recent economic crisis and the burgeoning era of austerity, the primary issue is not one of scarcity of resources, but rather a problem of collective decision-making.As individuals, none of us would neglect to save a child drowning in a pool of water in front of us. In fact, when making the decision as an individual, each of us is likely to make considerable personal sacrifices in order to save the life of that child. Making that same decision as a group however--to decide as the collective two billion upper-middle and high income people living on the planet--that we will make the relatively small sacrifice needed to save the greater than five million children that die