"WE HAVE dealt with the urgent thing so we can dedicate ourselves to the important thing," declared Domingo Cavallo, Argentina's economy minister, last weekend, on concluding the biggest-ever voluntary refinancing of its debts by a government.
Moves to establish sharia tribunals, be they ever so voluntary, aroused "quite a lot of anti-Muslim feelings", says Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (which opposed the tribunals).
The GPs unanimously stated that no feedback is ever received from voluntary or social services despite this information being very important in future and ongoing diagnosis and treatment (see example comments in box 3), due mostly to their different confidentiality requirements.
In multivariate analyses (table 2), seeking health care remained associated with two markers of healthcare utilisation (currently being prescribed substitute drug, and ever having had voluntary-confidential test for hepatitis C); a risk factor for infection (injecting into the groin); and a marker of good hygiene practice (always swabbing injection sites).
Note: Reporting an injection site infection in previous year was not associated with: having been imprisoned; having had an overdose; injecting amphetamines; washing hands before injection; injecting into arms; using vitamin c/ascorbic acid, lemon juice or vinegar to dissolve drugs; ever having had voluntary-confidential test for HIV; and uptake of hepatitis B vaccine.
"How do you ever know what's voluntary?" Professor Brooks asked in an interview.
"There's no serious environmental problem that's ever been solved by voluntary measures," said David Doniger, climate policy director at the National Resources Defense Council.
Ever since the 1997 Voluntary Disclosure of Income and Wealth Scheme unearthed about $10 billion (at prevailing exchange rates), various finance ministers have been under pressure to announce another "black money amnesty scheme".
Recent examples include Hewlett-Packard'spinoffff of Agilent Technologies, the divestiture by General Motors of its Delphi parts subsidiaries, and AT&T's 1996 spinoffs of Lucent Technologies and NCR, the largest voluntary breakup ever.
The gradual erosion of government funding has made the sector ever more reliant on voluntary income, but fund-raising for domestic abuse victims remains tricky: In a sign of how much of a social taboo the issue remains, more than twice as much money is given to the Donkey Sanctuary as to Refuge and Women's Aid, the two largest British domestic violence charities, combined.
