Who pays?
February 4, 2010 by Simon Berry · 4 Comments
This tweet is a great starting point for a blog post. Thanks to @gentlemandad for posting it. I think it was in response to yesterday’s ColaLife principle: promoting micro-enterprise post where I made the case for Coca-Cola distributors to be paid for the safe delivery of AidPods.
The short answer is ‘I don’t know, it depends’. But the considered response is:
Although this is obviously a significant consideration which will have to be addressed, this is not the place to start. The starting point is the fact that 1 in 5 children in developing countries die before their 5th birthday and the majority die from preventable causes. The next question is ‘What should be done about this, if anything?’. If we agree that this is just not acceptable in the 21st Century, then the question turns to, ‘What can we do with the resources available to have the biggest impact?’.
Having got this far you need the most cost-effective means of doing everything: procuring the drugs; training the health workers; running awareness raising/training campaigns, distribution and so on. When it comes to distribution, especially to more remote areas, it will NOT be cost ineffective to set up a dedicated distribution system and maintain it. Piggybacking on existing distribution networks, like Coca-Cola’s, is going to be far more cost-effective, by an order of magnitude, even if you make micro-payments to those who undertake successful delivery.
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