This document outlines Greenpeace’s assessment of the decisions taken at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change held in Denmark in December 2009. In this, Greenpeace calls for a financial mechanism for dealing with climate change that is transparent and inclusive. At Copenhagen, Governments agreed to establish a Copenhagen Climate Fund, which Greenpeace believes is one step to ensuring that investments take place where they are most needed, noting that developing country action on climate change must have technological and financial support from industrialised countries.
Resource allocation and health financing
Greenpeace Copenhagen outcome assessment
Greenpeace: 19 December 2009
Huge cuts in aid ahead for HIV and AIDS treatment
Cullinan K: Health-e News, 27 January 2010
South Africa is reported to be facing large cuts in external funding, such as in falling US funding, for its HIV and AIDS programme over the next five years, despite needing an extra R2-billion a year to reach all those who need antiretroviral treatment. Almost a million South Africans will soon be on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number will triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan. Scenario planning by Treasury indicates that the demand for treatment and care will peak in 2021, when the country would need close to South African Rands 30-billion (about 4.3 billion US dollars).
Who benefits from health care in South Africa?
University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit Information Sheet
This information sheet presents evidence on the distribution of benefit of health services in South Africa. Within the public sector, the poor benefit relatively more than the rich from outpatient services at lower levels of care. The rich benefit considerably more than the poor from regional and central hospital services (both outpatient and inpatient services) and also benefit more from public sector inpatient services overall. The rich benefit far more from private sector services than the poor; the richest 40% of the population receive about 70% of the benefits of private outpatient services (from general practitioners, specialists, dentists and retail pharmacies) and nearly 80% of the benefits of inpatient care in private hospitals. Overall, health care benefits in South Africa are very ‘pro-rich’, with the richest 20% of the population receiving more than a third of total benefits while the poorest 20% receive less than 13% of the benefits, despite poor people bearing a much greater share of the burden of ill-health than rich people.
Why South Africa needs a competitive ARV tender
Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum: Health-e News, 24 February 2010
The South African Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum meeting in February 2010 was reported to raise a number of issues relevant to antiretroviral (ARV) tenders to ensure adequate supplies of appropriate medicines at the lowest possible prices. The meeting noted the need for co-operation between treasury and health departments to achieve a scale of procurement to use the leverage of the world’s largest ARV treatment programme to get the best possible deals from drug companies.
Aid and growth: Have we come full circle?
Channing A, Jones S and Tarp F: UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2009/05, October 2009
In this paper, the authors state that the micro-macro paradox has been revived. Despite broadly positive evaluations at the micro and meso-levels, they note that recent literature has turned decidedly pessimistic with respect to the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth. Policy implications, such as the complete cessation of aid to Africa, are being drawn on the basis of fragile evidence. This paper first assesses the aid-growth literature with a focus on recent contributions. The aid-growth literature is then framed, for the first time, in terms of the Rubin Causal Model, applied at the macroeconomic level. Its results show that aid has a positive and statistically significant causal effect on growth over the long run with point estimates at levels suggested by growth theory. It concludes that aid remains an important tool for enhancing the development prospects of poor nations.
Greater aid transparency: Crucial for aid effectiveness
Moon S and Williamson T: Overseas Development Institute Briefing Paper 35, January 2010
This paper sets out and explores the link between donor aid and recipient country budgets, and the role greater transparency about aid can play in improving budget transparency, the quality of budgetary decisions, and accountability systems. The paper goes on to explore how current initiatives to improve aid transparency can best support better budgets and accountability in aid dependent countries. These efforts provide an important opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of both the recipient governments’ own spending and the aid they receive from donors. It concludes that publishing better information on aid requires compatibility with recipients’ budgeting and planning systems. The research findings suggest that recipient budgets bear many similarities, but this is not reflected in current formats for reporting aid. Finally, it concludes that the poorest countries will lose out if donors do not publish aid information that is easy to link with recipient government budget systems.
Public health, innovation and intellectual property: Report of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing
World Health Organization: 23 December 2009
Having considered a wide range of options, the Expert Working Group put forward the following fundraising proposals based on the likelihood they can generate new funds for health research and development in a sustainable way: a new indirect tax (a consumer-based tax); voluntary business and consumer contributions; new donor funds for health research and development; and a new indirect tax. The High-Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems estimates that additional funding for health might grow to some US$7.4 billion per annum by 2015 from traditional donors (under optimistic assumptions and if donors meet their commitments to aid) and that developing country contributions might be in the range of US$9.5–12.1 billion per annum. However, there would be a gap in available additional funds until then, as additional resources rise from US$2.8 billion in 2009 to US$7.4 billion in 2015. The following five proposals should provide funding allocation across most research and development stages and developers in a manner that is best designed to maximise public health returns in the developing world: funding via product development partnerships; direct grants to small and medium-sized enterprises and grants for developing country trials; milestone prizes; end-prizes (cash); and purchase or procurement agreements.
The triple crisis and the global aid architecture
Addison T, Arndt C and Tarp F: UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2010/01, January 2010
According to the authors of this study, the global economy is passing through a period of profound change. They identify three global crises. The immediate concern is with the financial crisis, originating in the North. The South is affected via reduced demand and lower prices for their exports, reduced private financial flows and falling remittances. This is the first crisis. Simultaneously, climate change remains unchecked, with the growth in greenhouse gas emissions exceeding previous estimates. This is the second crisis. Finally, malnutrition and hunger are on the rise, propelled by the recent inflation in global food prices. This constitutes the third crisis. These three crises interact to undermine the prosperity of present and future generations. Each has implications for international aid and underlines the need for concerted action.
Development effectiveness: Towards new understandings
Kindornay S and Morton B: North-South Institute, 2009
According to this brief, aid effectiveness refers to how effective aid is in achieving expected outputs and stated objectives of aid interventions. In contrast, the brief observes, aid actors are also interested in development effectiveness, a term which lacks clarity leaving it open to considerable scope for interpretation. The brief suggests four categories to help in understanding the term development effectiveness: as organisational effectiveness; as coherence or coordination; as the development outcomes from aid; and as overall development outcomes. The latter overlaps with other understandings of the term but is the most comprehensive approach of the four categories. Here, it is seen as a measure of the overall development process, and not just the outcomes from aid. The brief recommends that a successful agenda on development effectiveness should depend on concerted efforts between developing country governments and official aid funders basing on their willingness to reformulate the current effectiveness agenda, and that the creation of a development effectiveness agenda will require a level of agreement on the operational meaning of the term.
Is global interest in the Tobin tax genuine?
Guise A: EG4Health, 4 December 2009
The idea of a Tobin tax is suddenly popular amongst many who have long opposed it. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has even come out in favour of the tax and the G20 have asked for further research to be done in this area. But this interest from the dominant institutions and governments running the global economy could act to prevent discussion on other much-needed reform. So what lies behind the interest in a Tobin tax? One response is that it is quite simply a good idea. It has the potential to raise billions of dollars and would help control a finance industry that has floated free of ideas of needing to benefit wider society. A second response then to what lies behind the talk of a Tobin tax is that while it would be a radical reform, it may be a politically handy ‘trick’ to cover the lack of even more radical reform. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Gordon Brown could see implementing the Tobin tax as a useful way of escaping a deeper scrutiny of the flaws in the global economy and how it is run. Meanwhile, the unequal system that perpetuates ill-health and poverty continues.