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HIV/AIDS is a heavily mediatised disease. In this article, we test whether media attention is affecting donors' disbursement of aid for HIV to African countries. We use information available on the number of articles and press documents on HIV issues and other health concerns published in donor countries to construct a proxy of media coverage. This proxy is then included as an explanatory variable in a regression of aid for HIV to Africa. After controlling for several donor characteristics, we find that greater media coverage increases aid disbursement. This may be good news for the HIV campaign but may result in displacement effects to the extent that other diseases that cause greater mortality and morbidity receive less media coverage than HIV and thus less health aid., (Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

This article conducts a comparative analysis of the interrelationship between climate, life expectancy and income between African and non-African countries. To put the analysis in a broader context of development, the paper develops an income-climate trap model that explains the multi-directional interaction between income, climate and life expectancy. It is suggested that the interaction can give rise to either a virtuous cycle of prosperity or a vicious cycle of poverty. Applying the model to a data set of 158 countries, we find that climate is a more important determinant of life expectancy in African countries than in non-African countries. We provide further empirical evidence that while climate is important in determining both life expectancy and income, income can in turn moderate the adverse effects of climate on life expectancy. In the past two decades, the income level of non-African countries has grown significantly while that of African countries has largely been stagnant, implying that the future development of African countries remains highly vulnerable to adverse climatic conditions. These findings have important implications in the context of climate change, as global warming is likely to create worsening climatic conditions that could see many less developed countries sinking deeper into an income-climate trap of underdevelopment in health.