BBQ

Fogarty grantees, as I believe they are called, receive money to facilitate the NIH missions in global health research. I happened to walk in on them having a BBQ. For the past week my bosses have been clamoring about getting an interview with these students, and here I am, by pure coincidence, having dinner with them. So I jump in the mix.

It would be impossible to find someone that wasn’t thoroughly engaging, and insightful. Almost all of them are in their mid-to-late twenties and have graduated, or are about to graduate from their respective graduate programs. The students have just been gathered in Bethesda (I have been here two weeks and already noticed people grimace when they say Bethesda) for a two week orientation before they go off to their respective global sights to do research on HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria and other neglected diseases (as Kimberly likes to say ‘saving the world’). As I work my way through the crowd I talk to Marc who is doing research in Haiti, his home, comparing best practices for treatment of HIV/AIDs patients who contract tuberculosis. I learn about the Chinese AIDs epidemic from Jing who is doing research in China. Miriam, Jerry's daughter is doing work on infectious diseases in Kampala in Uganda. You get the picture I am painting; these are the next generation of global health researchers.


After answering my questions, they turn the tables and ask me what I do. I explain the Research!America Paul G. Rogers Society mission to increase the the budget for global health research. Because they are global health researchers I know I am preaching to the choir.

With grilled leeks in hand I find myself in a discussion about micro-finance institutions (MFIs). Finally, a subject I know a fair amount about (Last semester I took a class on underdevelopment: hat tip to Matt Warning, and Omid Haraf). Unfortunately I have to bridle some of their enthusiasm for MFIs. I explain I am cautious about endorsing an unsustainable development program.

The main problems with providing credit, especially to the world's poor, are asymmetrical information, and moral hazard dilemmas. (i.e. there are not a lot, if any credit agencies that service the world's poor, and poor people often do not have collateral to back their loans).

As I work my way down the list of problems with MFIs a Fogarty grantee (We'll leave the person anonymous because of the sensitivity of their work) asks me what I propose to do about countries like Zimbabwe. I soon find myself flustered by the question. People familiar with Zimbabwe know that its currency was abandoned in January of this year because of the rampant inflation (10 million percent last I checked). The grantee proceeds to tell me an enthralling tale of smuggling hard currency denominated in U.S. dollars into Zimbabwe in picture frames. I quickly come to the realization that I must back peddle from the line of attack on MFIs because sustainability of a program is hardly a priority in a country where people are on the verge of existence. Today I still struggle to reconcile my position on Zimbabwe.

How best do you help the people of a country when their ruler is corrupt? When the ruler diverts aid to further subjugate their people? Aid only props up a defunct government, but doing nothing leaves millions of people to die from diseases, and starvation.