Spread the Net

Rick Mercer and Belinda Stronach are teaming with a campaign to Spread the Net and purchase 500,000 mosquito proof bed nets to reduce malaria in Africa.

The good news is that this is certainly a worthwhile goal, and one that has ranked highly on both the 2004 and 2006 editions of the Copenhagen Consensus.

The bad news is, as Chris Edey dicusses in this excellent blog, that programs of this type are prone to failure. Notably because when something is free people tend to think of all kinds of ingenious uses for them (in the case of bed nets apparently the make good fishing nets and wedding dresses).

Here's hoping the Stronach/Mercer team are able to come up with an innovation to make this program more successful, rather than merely joining the ranks of the development set.

In other news, I'm disappointed that trade liberalization slipped in the rankings for the '06 Copenhagen Consensus - but it's still the only significant thing we can do to help the third world at no cost. An excellent value for money if you ask me.