When the “North” Becomes the “South”

Only a scant few years ago, Spain was proud of the fact that its official development aid was a major donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and was working to solve the world’s health problems not only through the transfer of financial resources from the north to the south, but also through the work of Spanish scientists.

Today, however, the trend towards a reversal of this situation is extremely worrying. After a summer of shocks and concern over the finances of our largest public research institution and the news that many of the CSIC’s projects were stalled because funds had been diverted to cover the overheads of scientific institutions, we are now digesting the news that the Senegalese government is to contribute more than €300,000 to the University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health in Tenerife.  

According to the directors of that institute, a campaign was launched to attract foreign funding when, among other problems, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) withdrew their €500,000 contribution. Senegal’s donation is the first fruit of this campaign.  

We do not know exactly what led the Senegalese government to include the funding of a scientific research centre in the Canary Islands among its priorities, but the news has had a dramatic impact because of the symbolic implications of the south funding the north. Spain’s position in international scientific geopolitics has also been changed radically by this event as it has become the recipient of public funds from a country with a per capita gross domestic product almost 30 times smaller than its own, indeed, from one that is actually on the list of priority recipients of Spanish cooperation funds.

Let us be clear about this: countries are right to invest in research that helps them to solve their most pressing health problems and the University Institute in the Canary Islands is right to seek funding outside of our borders no matter whether it comes from the European Union, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Government of Senegal.  

Above and beyond the surprising nature of this announcement, the scandalous reality is that Spain’s research capacity is being dismantled by budget cuts that not only prevent Spanish scientists from undertaking new projects but are also threatening the survival of groups and projects that are the result of the hard work of many researchers and funds provided by each and every one of the contributors.

Notwithstanding speeches extolling efficiency, it is simply naive to ignore the fact that there is a point beyond which it is plainly impossible to do “more with less, but just as well”.  The latest chilling developments in public health include ever longer waiting lists and no health care for immigrants whose legal status is irregular. In the public university sector, certain Masters courses have already been eliminated because they no longer fit in with the more blinkered and greedy market logic that now prevails, and this step has been taken without prior reflexion on their academic value or on the strategic importance of the disciplines involved. It also seems likely that we will begin to see cases of ongoing research thrown overboard, just as we have witnessed the emigration of many young scientists.

Senegal’s decision to fund a Spanish institution is symbolic of the impending risk of a breakdown in Spain’s scientific infrastructure and has sounded a warning bell about the seriousness of the current situation. Hopefully, we will not have to become accustomed in the near future to surviving on subsidies from the most unexpected sources, just as we now find it normal to witness our next-door neighbours being evicted or facing long-term  unemployment.