Zambia Uses G8 Debt Money, Makes Healthcare Free

If you are one of those who back the "Make Poverty History" campaign and who called for the G8 leaders at Gleneagles last year to cancel Third World debt, then give yourself a well deserved pat on the back. Here is a tangible result of your raised voices.

This from Oxfam:

The government of Zambia today (1 April) introduced free health care for people living in rural areas, scrapping fees which for years had made health care inaccessible for millions.

The move was made possible using money from the debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles last July, when Zambia received $4 billion of debt relief; money it is now investing in health and education.

65 per cent of Zambia's citizens live on less than a dollar a day. Until today the average trip to a clinic would have cost more than double that amount, the equivalent of a UK worker having to £120 (US$200) just to visit a clinic.

"This is one of the first concrete examples of how the G8 deal last year has made a real difference to peoples' lives," said Barbara Stocking, Director of Oxfam. "People often bemoan the lack of good news coming out of Africa – well here's an example of real progress. It shows what can happen when people both in the rich world and the developing world push their leaders to deliver. Those who backed the Make Poverty History campaign last year should be proud of this achievement."

User fees were introduced in Zambia under IMF and World Bank pressure in the early 1990s. Young girls in rural areas were the main victims of the policy as their families were rarely willing or able to pay for their treatment.

The press release goes on to point out that, of 30 African nations surveyed, only three had scrapped healthcare user fees - we still have a lot to do.

And to those, mainly on the Right, who said scrapping Third World debt was a useless move because ALL the money would end up in the pockets of corrupt leaders - shame on you. As I wrote at the time of the G8 Summit:

Yet a large segment of the American Right say they stand for a pro-life philosophy - these are the very people who have a chance to pressure Bush into doing what is moral and just...they claim to stand firm against the deaths of 4000 unborn children each day in the USA yet say nothing about the deaths of 50,000 people a day, two thirds of them children, from preventable poverty in the Third World - or worse, parrot the Bush line which actively encourages those deaths to occur. Thus they become, by their silence or complicity, pro-life in the US but pro-death elsewhere. Perhaps they can justify this stance to themselves - maybe by saying the US Constitution provides the right to life only for US citizens. I don't know. May the divine have mercy on their souls.

Any relief at all for the millions in abject poverty is a worthwhile humanitarian venture of huge proportions. We can work on cutting corruption at the same time as, not as a prerequisite for, saving lives.