The article in the url link below demonstrates clear boundary constraints on the ability of the market to deliver social value (Issues: Profit, p200). The article argues that, at least in terms of the most effective means of distributing malaria nets to those who need them most, handing them out for free is a far superior means of distribution:
“In doing so, Dr. Kochi [the blunt new director of the World Health Organization's malaria program] turned his back on an alternative long favored by the Clinton and Bush administrations -- distribution by so-called social marketing, in which mosquito nets are sold through local shops at low, subsidized prices -- $1 or so for an insecticide-impregnated net that costs $5 to $7 from the maker -- with donors underwriting the losses and paying consultants to come up with brand names and advertise the nets.”
Past experience with social marketing suggests, in areas where there is little or no existing market infrastructure, trying to impose a market solution is ineffective:
“In 2000, a world health conference in Abuja, Nigeria, set a goal: by 2005, 60 percent of African children would be sleeping under nets. By 2005, only 3 percent were.”
The example presented in the article is compelling:
“Maendeleo, a village of about 140 mud-walled shacks with tin roofs, was part of a five-year study of 40 health districts. When it started in 2002, the only nets were those for sale in small shops, Dr. Olumese said, and only about 7 percent of people had them. Social marketing was introduced by Population Services International, a large aid contractor. That increased coverage to about 21 percent by early 2006. Then, late last year, the health ministry got a big grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that allowed it to hand out 3.4 million free nets in two weeks. Coverage rose to 67 percent, and distribution became more equitable. … Deaths of children dropped 44 percent. It also turned out to be cheaper.”
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
Distribution of Nets Splits Malaria Fighters
By REUBEN KYAMA and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.; Reuben Kyama reported from Maendeleo, Kenya, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York.
1280 words
9 October 2007
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
1
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/health/09nets.html
