DEVELOPMENTS

Guangdong Province in China is widely considered the primary point of origin for the Chinese Diaspora, as evidenced by the predominance of Cantonese–a Guangdong dialect–across the world’s Chinatowns. Unfortunately, this region is also the birthplace of many infectious diseases now posing a significant threat of global contagion, including SARS and more recently, the H5N1 avian influenza virus.  

Over the past three decades the emergence of more than 30 new infectious diseases has created a tremendous growth in awareness surrounding the possibility of a global pandemic.  In the past decade especially, almost all emergent diseases have begun as zoonotic–or, animal–diseases, mutating to make the leap to human-to-human transmission. The last flu pandemic in 1918 infected 30% of the global population, causing roughly 50 million deaths. Throughout the 2002 SARS outbreak, Chinatowns worldwide suffered significant business losses due to widespread fear of infection, despite a lack of cases reported in those communities. Such losses were intensified by the highly-publicized story of a doctor from China who traveled to Hong Kong where he spread SARS to 16 hotel guests, who in turn infected people in Canada, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. The Chinese government further aggravated the situation as they attempted to cover-up the SARS outbreak out of fear that an epidemic would disrupt social order and  damage the tourism sector. 

As global migration increases the distance germs can travel, it raises the question of whether diaspora communities like the global Chinatowns constitute particular micro-zones of risk for infection. Thus, policymakers must address the need for international cooperation and transparency in combating infectious diseases so that the dual status of Guangdong Province, as the source of the world’s largest diaspora population and some its most dangerous diseases, does not become undue cause for concern as we combat the current threat of avian influenza. 

DEVELOPMENTS

The Government of Rwanda recently declared its intention to significantly decrease its dependence on foreign aid within the next five years. For a country that relies on donors for between 60-70% of its government expenditures, this statement might seem brash and irresponsible. However, Dambisa Moyo, the former Head of Economic Research and Strategy for sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs and a former employee of the World Bank, believes that rejecting foreign aid is the only way to ensure lasting development in sub-Saharan Africa. Moyo’s arguments are provocative, but to reject foreign aid entirely is to discount the benefits aid has brought and can continue to bring to Africa. Rather than rejecting it, foreign aid should be restructured to strengthen the capacities of, and synergies between, governments and the private sector.