Replace voluntary donations for shared protection against disease and climate with fixed shares that every country must pay
In short
- Countries stop relying on the whims of voluntary donations to pay for protection that all of humanity shares.
- Every country must pay a fixed share every year, based on how wealthy it is.
- The money goes into a joint fund that pays for protection against disease, climate harm, and damage to the seas.
- A country that does not pay loses its place in the talks that decide how the fund is used.
- The poorest countries pay only a small share, and the voices of the countries that receive support count just as much.
If this comes true
In an island country, in the week the first patients with an unfamiliar fever appear, testing machines and experts arrive from the joint fund, and the harbor market keeps holding its morning auction without closing.
Perhaps
In a poor country that cut its budget to pay its share, the repair of a school roof might be put off for a year.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This proposal defines as "shared protection for humanity" those kinds of preparation against dangers that cross borders which no single country can handle alone and from which countries other than the one that paid also benefit, and it changes how the cost is collected. It covers only four areas: early detection and first containment of new infectious diseases, preparation to reduce the damage from climate change, protection of nature that belongs to no one, such as the high seas and the air, and basic research that anyone can use. Under a treaty, each country automatically pays into a joint fund every year a share set by a formula based on the size of its economy and how wealthy its people are on average. The shares are reviewed every few years, but a country cannot cut its share on its own, even when its economy or its government changes. The board that decides how the fund is used gives the same number of seats to the countries that pay more and to the countries that receive support, so that the large contributors cannot decide alone. A country that fails to pay for a set period loses its vote on the board and is also left out of the joint purchasing agreements for medicines and equipment that the fund arranges. The lowest-income countries pay only a nominal amount, and in return they must build up their own systems for monitoring and reporting. The fund's accounts and the reasons for its spending are audited independently and made public.
BenefitsMoney for preparation keeps flowing, even in years when nothing happens
Because payments are made automatically every year under a formula set by treaty, the budget for preparation does not shrink in years without a crisis. Preparing for disease is a pile of work that only pays off after many years in a row: widening the net of testing, training experts, and stockpiling medicines and equipment. Under today's system of yearly donations, even a good plan cannot count on next year's money, so neither people nor equipment get built up. When the flow of money is steady, there is a better chance of spotting a small warning sign in a distant country early and stopping it before it spreads. The rule that removes non-paying countries from decisions also shrinks the gain from a free ride. Because it is harder to calculate that you can benefit while others pay, each country can also write its budget at home on the assumption that paying is simply what is done. When the countries that receive support have an equal voice on the board, money is more likely to reach the places where the gaps really are, instead of following the convenience of those who give aid. In the end, even for people in wealthy countries, it becomes the cheapest kind of protection: stopping a crisis far away before it reaches home.
DrawbacksNational budgets get tied down, leaving less room to choose for ourselves
Because a country cannot cut its share on its own even when its economy or government changes, every country has to place part of its budget somewhere beyond the reach of its elected legislature. Even when a country does not have enough money for hospitals or schools at home, having the payment for faraway preparation already settled first is hard for taxpayers to accept. In middle-income countries in particular, the share can weigh heavily while the support received is small. A joint fund that gathers a large amount of money can also become a powerful organization in its own right, and may become a place for waste, turf battles, and some countries steering how the money is used. Even with the board seats split evenly, countries that negotiate skillfully will unavoidably have an advantage. Furthermore, if the most powerful country leaves the treaty, the weight of the whole system is badly damaged, and the countries that remain could end up paying on their own. People in every country would accept the cost of placing part of their own money somewhere they cannot decide about by themselves.
Learn the background
Epidemics and climate change do not stop at borders, and a gap in one country's preparation can decide the lives and livelihoods of people in a country far away. Even so, much of the money for this kind of preparation still depends on voluntary donations from countries. Donations pour in right after a crisis, but they shrink in years when nothing happens, and the people who write budgets keep being asked at home why they are paying for it now. And the better the preparation works, the less often a crisis occurs, and because the results cannot be seen, the money is cut even more easily. On top of that, a country that does not pay still gets the same benefit if others do, so every country has a reason to pay a little less. The temptation of this free ride does not go away through goodwill or appeals. As a result, the people who suffer most are those in poor countries, where the gaps in preparation are largest, and those who will be hurt by the next crisis, which has not yet happened. A major reason this problem has not been solved is that most past international agreements only set goals and never decided what happens to those who do not pay.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes