Rethinking Aid Allocation: Analysis of Official Development Spending on Modern Pollution Reduction

Abstract

Background:Modern pollution – pollution attributable to industrialization and urbanization – is responsible for nearly 6 million deaths per year, more than all the deaths from HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined; yet it receives comparatively little attention in the international development agenda [1].Objective/Methods:This study attempts to highlight the funding disparity between select key threats to global health by quantifying the levels of international official development aid (ODA) allocated to reducing pollution’s negative impact on human health using a new metric – dollars spent per death caused by health threat.Findings:Using only reported ODA spending for 2016, we calculate an average investment of $14/death for modern pollution, compared with $1,250/death for malaria, $190/death for tuberculosis, and $165/death for HIV/AIDS.Conclusions:Although there are substantive limitations to this analysis, results are sufficient to galvanize action to better monitor and track investments in modern pollution reduction. Donor countries have failed to respond to this urgent public health crisis. Given the severity of its public health burden, there is a critical need for funding to be allocated specifically to pollution reduction.

Pollution and health: a progress update

“…An analysis of available OECD figures for 2016 on official development assistance (ODA) concluded that donor countries have not responded to the global crisis of pollutionrelated disease and death through expanded investment in pollution control. 66 A 2019 study of ODA from bilateral and UN agencies allocated to reducing modern pollution found that support fluctuated from year to year and that there was no overall upward trend. 66 ODA contributions to international conventions and frame works concerning pollutants and chemicals amounted to $860 million in 2016-18, which is inadequate for the size and scope of the problem.…”

“…66 A 2019 study of ODA from bilateral and UN agencies allocated to reducing modern pollution found that support fluctuated from year to year and that there was no overall upward trend. 66 ODA contributions to international conventions and frame works concerning pollutants and chemicals amounted to $860 million in 2016-18, which is inadequate for the size and scope of the problem. Private philanthropic funding for pollution control also remains scarce.…”

Human Health and Ocean Pollution

“…Pollution has until recently been overlooked in international development planning and largely neglected in the global health agenda [ 25 ]. For too long, pollution has been regarded as the unavoidable price of economic progress [ 25 ], a view that arose out of the experience of the 19th and 20th centuries when combustion of fossil fuels – coal in particular – was the engine of economic growth and pollution was seen as unavoidable. Today, however, the claim that pollution is inevitable and that pollution control costs jobs and stifles economies is no longer tenable.…”

“…Today, however, the claim that pollution is inevitable and that pollution control costs jobs and stifles economies is no longer tenable. It has been disproven by the experience of the many countries that have more than doubled their GDPs in the past half century while greatly reducing pollution [ 24 25 26 ]. It has become irrelevant with the increasing availability of low-cost, renewable sources of energy and advances in green chemistry.…”