NAIROBI, 12 November (IRIN): Can the entrepreneurial zeal (iver), innovation and super-size budgets of private foundations succeed where a sclerotic (forkalket) and undisciplined international aid industry has failed?
Or is the “New Philanthropy” simply executive arrogance, vanity and naïveté – rushing in where even the “aid experts” have failed?
Economist Jeffery Sachs believes the worlds 2015 millennium development goal (MDG) targets could be met with a budget of 150 billion US dollar a year. – Our governments are not acting. People are dying, he claims.
Rather than looking to the G8, Sachs points to the Forbes Rich List as the best potential source of the cash. Just 5 percent, Sachs says, of the income of the worlds 950 dollar billionaires would easily raise the funds.
Others demur (nærer betænkeligheder). – The problems we face in reducing poverty and disease and other issues are not about money, warns Randolph Kent, director of the Humanitarian Futures Programme at Kings College, University of London.
– Indeed, there is a strong danger that if more money is thrown at the problems we will see an increase of problems and not the solutions, says he.
The hyper-rich and their supporters do not see it that way. Bono, the Irish rock star and activist, has said:
– Our generation has a unique opportunity to make history. We have the money, we have the knowledge, we know the people who can help Africa. We can make it happen with people like Bill Gates.
Goodwill
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent 13,6 billion dollar since 2000 on domestic and international projects. Its assets will top 60 billion dollar when the contribution of investor Warren Buffett is included.
In a style that has been called “venture (vovelig/dristig) philanthropy”, the Gates Foundation tackles some of the toughest global problems, especially in health, taking a hands-on, innovation-friendly approach.
In one of its latest initiatives, in October 2007 the foundation launched a 100 million dollar, five-year programme providing small grants to “nurture unorthodox approaches to global health”.
Inaugurated in Cape Town, South Africa, the Grand Challenges Explorations programme will target scientists in Africa and Asia, offering research grants of 100.000 dollar.
The foundation has massively boosted key aspects of medical research and intervention, especially in areas considered to be unprofitable by the medical and pharmaceutical private sector.
The power of partnerships
Besides the hyper-rich are brokers like Bono and former US President Bill Clinton.
Clintons annual fundraising gatherings in New York draw 1.000 of the worlds richest and most innovative people together for three days. This years event, in September, included 52 former or current world leaders. Each invitation-only participant pays 15.000 dollar to discuss problems that were previously the preserve of the aid sector.
The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) says it “attempts to create a composition that matches people who have resources with those who have the most innovative ideas”.
The CGI does not make grants but behaves like a matchmaker. About 10 billion dollar worth of “commitments” were made through the initiative, once described as a “stock exchange for donations to worthy causes”.
Social entrepreneurs
On a less glittering scale, new types of relationships between the private and charitable sector are developing.
“Venture philanthropists”, such as the UKs Impetus Trust, are bringing venture capital techniques to the voluntary sector by working with charities to improve their management and performance.
The US-based Acumen Fund invests in pro-poor business but expects monetary success as well as promoting worthy products and causes through enterprise.
Uneasy critics
But Nobel Prize winner and micro-credit pioneer Muhammad Yunus is sceptical:
– If someone makes a 100 dollar profit and donates five dollar to a good cause, and possibly only to save on taxes, that does not impress me very much, says he.
– I am more interested in what global philanthropy looks like, not just the individual giving of a few Anglo-American billionaires, concurs (samtykker) Kent of London University.
– While it may be true that the aid sector has not yet successfully addressed some of the major global problems, there is no evidence the billionaires will be any more successful. I am not convinced that they have any greater advantage in terms of assessment or accountability (overvågning/gennemskuelighed) than the traditional mechanisms available, noted Kent concluding:
– It is all too early to judge but I would be surprised if you find that they come up with radical solutions to old problems.
One billionaire at least feels no doubt about his impulse to act.
“If we do not solve the problem of climate change,” said American financier and philanthropist George Soros, “we will go after each other . . Before we cook ourselves to death, we will kill each other.”
British Virgin group entrepreneur Richard Branson epitomises the mood of the New Philanthropy: – I refuse to believe that we cannot do it (create a better world).
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
