Do you have to be rich to provide universal education and healthcare?

In theory, being wealthy should not be a prerequisite for access to universal education and health care facilities, as the provision of universal education and health care systems is already included in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, the expansion of the vision of democratic governments and their flexibility to welcome international donor agencies have facilitated access to universal education and health care systems regardless of wealth. Nepal is a cautionary example.

If I am a citizen of northern European countries like Spain, Italy, UK, Germany etc., then I can get healthcare facilities through legal mechanisms enforced by the government in the form of different insurance laws, whether I am rich or not. Similarly, universal primary education and maternal health are among the main targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which different international donor agencies like the World Bank and UNDP are working together to achieve, which will benefit the “poor” citizens of poor Asian countries like Nepal and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The reality is that Nepalese people generally have to pay a high price to access health and education because we cannot distinguish the concept of “basic health and education” from expensive high-standard medical facilities and strict discipline education in boarding schools. In Afghanistan, in the seven years from 2001 to 2008, the number of girls attending school jumped from 15,000 to 2.2 million due to the cooperation of the World Bank and the International Development Association (IDA). Although data and facts can be deceptive and may not capture all the factors behind progress, there is enough reason to agree that with the influx of donor-driven development projects such as the Millennium Development Goals, people’s access to health and education has increased, regardless of whether they have money or not.

So, people do not need to spend money to meet these basic needs because the general situation shows that these needs are either provided by the government alone, such as in the Nordic countries where the income level is very high, or by international donor agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program in poor countries where the government and people cannot afford it.

refer to

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Diana Ayton-Shenker, (1995).Human rights and the challenge of cultural diversity. (February 25, 2012) http://www.un.org/rights/dpi1627e.htm>;

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