We have ample reason to be dubious of such grant announcements. In Canada’s case, its summit announcement of $300 million over 3 years to the Global Fund (on the heels of its larger pledge to a new G8 maternal health drive announced when it hosted the G8/G20 summits earlier this year) is not new money. Much earlier this year Canada announced that it was freezing all development assistance spending for the next 5 years at its current level. So any new aid announcements are simply re-arranging how the firmly capped budget will be spent. As for philanthropy, let’s not forget that Pfizer last year paid the biggest corporate fine in US history for illegal drug marketing, and is facing yet another lawsuit. Carlos Slim, meanwhile, is hip-deep in tobacco companies and profits, addicting and killing with one hand what he now contributes to curing with the other.
Ronald
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Ronald Labonte
mailto:rlabonte@uottawa.ca