My impression is he disappeared from the spotlight after a rise to fame. Never understood why. Maybe his illness? Or that some of his facts actually were inconvenient.
This was a position held only by the nationalistic (and at least partially racist) political party Sverigedemokraterna, but I think he simply looked at the numbers and saw that the cost for refugees in Sweden is at least 5 (10?) times higher than UNHCR's total budget, while helping only 1-2% of the number of refugees compared to what UNHCR administers.
If I remember correctly, he might have mentioned that at a big fundraiser supporting immigration which was a truth no one wanted to hear, as the "story" as told by media at the time conveyed that the middle east and Africa is inhabitable in general, without exception.
He was remarkably absent in the news after that, almost like an embarrassed silence, but I guess he probably was diagnosed with his illness less than 6 months after that, so I might have been over-interpreting the coincidence.
I might add that Sweden is a very small country with a very strong group-mentality in regards to political ideas and opinions ( and other areas, like fashion).
Political triangulation would have arrived at almost unrestricted immigration at the time.
... and yet here we have the main political editor of the largest Swedish tabloid (aka main representative of the people who feel rather than think):
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/8dn4A/lamnar-oss-nar-vi-...
wherein she basically reclaims his legacy for her own use. This is.. rich.
So stop pretending he meant anything else.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/kristofer-ahlstrom...
https://motargument.se/2015/10/06/myt-hans-rosling-ger-stod-...
Rosling's real argument was that we should fix the accounting behind it all, and to also give more foreign aid.
Does anyone have a citation for this, I'm not able to find anything on google.
He quotes 10 SEK / day compared to 500 SEK per day.
He is a bit defensive and says that he his not arguing against helping people in Sweden, just that Sweden as a consequence is NOT spending the money elsewhere.
It's pretty shocking that no one seems to have done any kind of a financial analysis on helping refugees in their local region vs helping them after migrating to western countries, you'd think that would be one of the first steps.
"We have failed to help where the amount of refugees are highest, in the areas of Syria, Iraq, etc. There we contribute through UNHCR with 10-15 SEK per day, whereas the cost in Sweden is 500 SEK per refugee. And we want people who come here to have a decent life, so I have nothing against that, but..."
And so on.
As you might see it is unclear whether he means Sweden/Swedes only gives 10-15 SEK per day to UNHCR, or whether he's saying a refugee in those camps does cost 10-15 SEK per day. Whatever he meant, as soon as he said this, he was "forgotten" in Swedish media because it was the same kind of point that our more protectionistic and border-friendly party aka racist-party, at least if you ask some people, was trying to make.
And really, it would be no surprise that living in a camp in Lebanon would be cheaper than living in Sweden on welfare. Especially since we're not building enough and municipalities are outbidding private capital to get housing for refugees.
I was just going to answer your question regarding the quote, but I got a bit involved in descibing the Swedish state of affairs ;) Rosling was only trying to show people the most effective way of helping other people. And I do assume he based his arguments on facts, as it was how he usually did things.
Meanwhile a single fact should be enough to convince the naysayers: the fact that the expected extra costs (that is, above the already budgeted costs) for migration into Sweden [2 - Swedish] is double the total budget of UNHCR [3], the UN commission responsible for helping refugees all over the world. For that money Sweden took in about 163.000 people (refugees and economic migrants who pose as such). UNHCR is responsible for 60 million refugees. Part of the increased costs for migration into Sweden are taken from the budget for international help and co-operation so the effect is even stronger that way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tino_Sanandaji
[2] http://www.svt.se/nyheter/ekonomi/migrationen-kostar-mer-an-hela-forsvaret
[3] http://www.unhcr.org/partners/donors/558a639f9/contributions-unhcr-budget-year-2015-31-december-2015.htmlThis comparison is meaningless without comparing what help they get and standard of living
It is no problem to help financing the already existing UNHCR funded missions in Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, etc that all are close neighbors to conflict zones.
Perhaps surprisingly, as it is not following the narrative conveyed by media, it is also possible to help internal refugees for instance in Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and even parts of Syria.
UNHCR also funds alternatives to refugee camps, and could spend much more money on integration, schools, healthcare in those sites.
The syrian refugees probably have a much higher chance of joining the economy in any country in the Middle East compared to Sweden, since the outlook for them is very bleak getting a job in one of the most demanding and competitive job markets in the world.
The drivers to get to northern Europe is more likely the social welfare systems, free healthcare, and free education for children, rather than jobs.
So how do you solve that as a humanitarian mission? Set up a permanent camp with its own welfare economy, sort of like a 'humanitarian special economic zone'?
One of the challenges with charity, though, is that you don't just want to spend the $10 optimally -- you also need to go back and tell your donors what you did with the $10, and convince them that they should give you $20 next year.
Interesting how people work sometimes.
He made some claims about the schengen directive about what responsibilities of travel companies have that did not really hold water. Also, he repeatedly confused migrant with refugee(classic beginner mistake).
However he started to nuance his critique later and came to unpopular opinion that the Swedish migration system is severely flawed.
Government of Sweden uses funds that is budgeted to foreign aid to pay for immigration. Biggest receiver of Swedish foreign aid is a Swedish county (yes, true).
Using foreign aid to fund immigration is something done both by the political parties of the right and the left.
Rosling said that using foreign aid money for expenses at home is just wrong. Foreign aid should go to regions in distress. Funds for immigration should be taken from other less important areas and/or increased taxes.
At this time almost only the Swedendemocrats(controversal anti-immigration party)criticized the migration system with basically the same argument, help migrants/refugees at their home region. Help many more at a cheaper cost (Sweden is expensive).
At this time in Swedish politics all of the other political parties tried to boycott the Swedendemocrats with the infamous December treaty (basically a pact to block elected members of parlament from the Swedendemocrats to have a say in any question).
To have a very famous and popular personality with a huge cult following say this during this time of Swedish history didn't go well at all with the establishment and he was less and less seen in public debates.
Rosling was of course not a Swedendemocrat, he was a liberal (European definition) and probably did not agree much with Swedendemocrats in other issues except foreign aid. However in todays debate climate where you have to buy everyone's opinion wholesale this didn't work so well for him.
Rest in peace Hans. You did fantastic work with your studies on poverty and global health. Farväl.
This opinion seems fairly popular to me, do you have a source for it?
At this time all political parties, except Sweden democrats, was de facto running on a Green party migration policy, inherited from former prime minister Reinfeldt (Moderates), who made an unholy alliance between the Right and the Greens to block any political influence from the Sweden democrats.
True is that the Green party had previously criticized the policy of using foreign aid to fund immigration costs. However when they came into power fall 2014 they accepted it and made into law.
It was not until a year later the Moderates starting to shift away from that policy.
During this time in September 2015, current Prime minister, Löfven, had a some sort a political "jippo" (show/spectacle) as a tour around Sweden called "Sweden Together", with all the top government bosses, where they claimed Swedish culture does not exists at all and open border policy is the way to go. In a speech around the same time Prime minister Löfven stated that "My Europe does not build any walls". About one month later, in the middle of November, same prime minster Löfven introduced strict border controls.
Discussion panel with Hans Rosling where he tells his biggest challenge was to explain to people that the leader of the Sweden Democrats have been correct all along with regards to foreign aid. Because remember for each migrant/refugee coming to Sweden, aid is removed for a few thousands abroad because it was using the same funds. So both prime minister Reinfeldt and Löfven declarations of humanity was not true. It is always unpopular to declare that emperor is naked.
So yes, It was unpopular at the time Rosling said it, especially giving such a controversial party as Sweden democrats recognition.
It was unpopular then, but have starting become popular now.
Late edit: to clarify, it was an unpopular opinion at the time Rosling said it, however if he had said it today, it probably have beeen a different reaction, the unpopular opinion have starting to become popular.
Swedish politics and Swedish media (press and 'entertainment') are ever so slowly waking up to the fact that the 'åsiktskorridor' - a system of political correctness and self-censorship, literally "opinion corridor" - they created is crumbling.
He did not agree with them about that either. SD used that rethoric, but their actual policy was to substantially lower foreign aid.
Opposition parties base their proposed budgets on the official budget. If the official budget uses budgetary loop holes, it will look weird when a proposed budget corrects that post, if you don't know what it actually represents.
Rosling have publicly stated that SD is correct on foreign aid.
Rosling position how high the foreign aid should be, I don't know, however I do know that he was more of a pro-trade person. Remember, Rosling was European liberal, historically they are very pro-trade.
Please to the next time, read what I actually wrote and not just spam links without making an argument against what I wrote.