The GAVI Alliance pledging conference is “being seen as a litmus test of how well aid can survive in the age of austerity,” columnist Madeleine Bunting writes in a Guardian commentary, addressing how foreign aid is viewed as “soft power … [to] establish influence and spread values – which is often more useful than diplomacy or defence in a post-cold war world.”

“The challenge ahead is all about communication, finding powerful ways to explain to a sceptical electorate that development issues such as feeding the world, water and health in the end affect us all. Stability, peace, prosperity: these cannot be simply national projects; global co-operation is a survival strategy. Four million children’s lives saved by lunchtime would be a good morning’s work,” she concludes (6/12).