WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) -- The ban on DDT - prompted by left-leaning non-governmental organizations - contributed to the spread of malaria in Africa, a disease that still kills a child every 20-30 seconds, speakers at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank said.
Speakers at the AEI conference, "Non-governmental organizations: The growing power of an unelected few," also pointed out what they regard as other failings. In Indonesia, they said, NGOs harmed cultural and political harmony and increased hunger and unemployment; in places such as India they further enriched the elite; and in Europe, socialist parties are using left-wing NGOs to impose their ideology on people.
Those who run NGOs say, however, their work improves the lives of millions worldwide. They point to the fact they are often the first to arrive with food, medicine and comfort during natural disasters. And in war-torn regions, they are often the last groups to leave.
The gap between the two sides is wide. The two-day AEI conference, which ended Thursday, pointed to the problems posed by NGOs around the world.
Many speakers said the NGOs "anti free market" and "anti-democracy" policies were doing more harm than good. The NGOs were also accused of pushing "left-leaning agendas" and turning social work into a profit-making industry.
The debate over the ban on DDT is one area the two sides are divided.
"These NGOs and aid agencies often pursue policies that are detrimental to the long-term growth of Africa and even advocate policies that exacerbate poverty and increase death and disease," said Roger Bate, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, a health advocacy group.
His paper, "Northern NGOs in the South: Health, wealth and the environment," argues these groups have done damage even in areas they say they serve.
"Perhaps the clearest example of NGO influence - and the best example of eco-imperialism to date -- relates to the restrictions placed on a chemical that is responsible for saving many millions of lives and changing the profile of a disease (malaria) from a global one to a tropical disease," he said.
Introduced during World War II, DDT or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, eradicated malaria from southern Europe and the United States in just a few years. There were dramatic reductions in malaria cases in India, Sri Lanka, South America and Southern Africa. The Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972, saying it "posed unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health." The question of whether the benefits outweighed the risks still sparks fierce debate, however.
Bate pointed out that in 1996, under pressure from green NGOs, South Africa stopped using DDT. Instead it used an alternative pesticide to which the mosquitoes quickly developed resistance. Malaria rates soared by 100 percent.
In 2000, South Africa started using DDT again. Malaria rates plummeted by 80 percent, he said.
But under pressure from green groups and NGOs, donor agencies are unwilling to fund the use of DDT in malaria control.
The Swedish International Donor Agency says it cannot fund the use of DDT in poor countries because it is banned in Sweden.
"I'd bet if 3 percent of Swedish babies were dying from malaria every year, that policy would change," Bate said.
Mike Nahan, from Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, blamed donor governments and agencies for the "proliferation" of NGOs because, he said, they dole out billions of dollars without thinking of the consequences.
Donor agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development say they are permitted to fund DDT use, but only as a last resort.
"Is one child's death every 20-30 seconds not an emergency?" Bate asked.
He says that agencies like the Greenpeace and WWF are demanding a complete phase out of the chemical by 2007. Developing countries, however, want to continue using this drug to fight malaria.
Given the influence of these agencies, Bate says, the developing countries do not have a strong chance of winning this fight.
He acknowledges some NGOs and aid agencies did provide much-needed services, such as healthcare and drug distribution, water supplies and sanitation in Africa, but, he said, in the long run their influence is always negative.
He pointed to the recent, successful campaign to reduce the price of AIDS drugs in Africa, but said access to these drugs were still poor. He said infrastructure to ensure better drug distribution rather than prices was an issue that needed to be focused upon.
He said campaigns to reduce drug prices would hurt the future development of drugs.
Over the past five years, he said, when global AIDS numbers have gone from 9 million to 42 million, there has been a 33-percent reduction in AIDS drugs in development.
Another issue the two sides clash on is genetically modified food.
Bate said the European Union-NGO-driven regulation against GMOs continued to kill Africans by preventing them from growing food that could have averted the recent famine in Zambia and elsewhere.
NGOs argue, however, Africans refuse GMO because the fear losing access to the EU markets and because some worry about environmental contamination from unmilled GM grains, and about health and other longer-term effects on their domestic agriculture.
Marguerite A. Peeters, director at the Brussels-based Institute for International Dialogue Dynamics, said that through NGOs socialist parties were imposing their left-wing ideology on Europe. She said EU reforms introduced by these NGOs would lead to a total change in international geo-political perspective.
On the prodding of such forces, she said, Europe is trying to position itself as a leader of the world, she says.
She warned there was a serious threat the left may take over the process of Europeanization.
"But it is not yet too late and the United States must do everything possible to build up its relationship with Europe," she said.
Nahan said that in the name of democracy, NGOs were promoting "balkanization" in some parts of the world. In places like Indonesia, where multiple ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups have co-existed for centuries, they are pushing separatist ideas that are not sustainable, he said.
In some places, he said, they have become more powerful than the government, "destroying much of civil society, undermining governments and permanently damaging cultures."
