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As the country‘s health financing crisis escalates, the option of reintroducing and increasing user fees at clinics and hospitals has already been tabled for debate. Such a devastating and retrograde move in Lesotho would further exacerbate inequality and increase rather than reduce access to healthcare for the majority of the population. World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, recently stated that user fees for healthcare are both unjust and unnecessary.

It is accepted that borrowing capital via the private sector will always be more expensive than governments borrowing on their own account. The theoretical cost saving and value for money potential of PPP financing and delivery therefore lies in effective risk transfer to the private sector and, in turn, the effective management of that risk by the private sector in the form of improved performance and greater cost efficiency in its operations. In the case of Lesotho, this potential benefit has not been realised, and the costs are already escalating to unsustainable levels.

The World Bank promised and advised that to build a Public-Private Partnership hospital in the capital would cost no more than the old public hospital it replaced.

But exactly who paid whom how much for mining rights in the Congo is up for debate. “ENRC’s purchase of its stake in Kolwezi was structured through a deal between itself and at least seven companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, all connected to Dan Gertler,” states a Global Witness fact sheet. “When ENRC bought the remaining 50 per cent stake in SMKK, it purchased it from another British Virgin Islands company linked to Mr Gertler. Even ENRC’s acquisition of CAMEC involved sale purchase agreements with several offshore companies linked to Dan Gertler which held shares in CAMEC.”

Gertler, an Israeli diamond merchant, has been doing business in Congo for over a decade, working first with Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the former president of the Congo, and now with his son, Joseph Kabila, the current president.

Apart from the moral qualms we should have about rising, high, and stubborn inequality, for regions facing a forthcoming youth surge, the prospect of relegating large numbers of able young people to the economic scrap heap is tantamount to embracing an era of social upheaval and instability. Such young people will be susceptible to the deceptively attractive quick-fixes that extremist movements offer. In an increasingly interconnected world, inequality is a global threat to peace and security.

Universal strategies to create jobs – millions and millions of them; reducing inequality; all done in a more transparent, globally interconnected way is the promise of the future. It often amazes me how much time and effort we all spend pontificating about international development. Yet in the last 50 years or more – in living memory – we have witnessed radical peaceful transformations of economies that have lifted millions of people out of poverty and seen emerging economies join the ranks of the richest, most stable developed economies in the world. Development may not be easy but it is not rocket science.