Health ministries around the world face a new challenge: to assess the risks and respond to the opportunities of the increasing openness in health services under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). International Trade in Health Services and the GATS addresses this challenge head-on by providing analytical tools to policymakers in health and trade ministries alike who are involved in the liberalization agenda and, specifically, in the GATS negotiations.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
International Trade in Health Services and the GATS: current issues and debates
Joint World Bank and WHO publication
AU Health Ministers Meeting speaks out on TRIPS
An AU Health Ministers meeting was held in Gaborone, Botswana 13-14 October 2005. On TRIPS, the final statement of the meeting said:
- UNDERTAKE to pursue, with the support of our partners, the local production of generic medicines on the continent and to making full use of the flexibilities in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health;
- CALL UPON our Ministers of Trade to seek a more appropriate permanent solution at the WTO that revises the TRIPS agreement and removes all constraints, including procedural requirements, relating to the export and import of generic medicines;
- CALL UPON Member States and Regional Economic Communities to ensure that TRIPS plus provisions which go beyond TRIPS obligations are not introduced in bilateral / regional trade agreements or in economic partnership agreements.
Disillusion in southern Africa ahead of trade summit
Campaigners from Southern Africa are bracing for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to be held in Hong Kong later this month. Some plan to send representatives to the meeting, to protest against unfair trade legislation – particularly as this relates to agriculture. These representatives will include two cotton farmers from Zimbabwe, says Ntando Ndlovu of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the capital, Harare.
"The two farmers will be in Hong Kong and make noise using anything, including the beating of drums," she told a gathering of Southern African activists this week at a conference held in the South African commercial hub of Johannesburg. Ndlovu also urged Mozambique and South Africa to send cotton farmers in support of their Zimbabwean counterparts.
Impasse on TRIPS talks and the Health permanent solution
The World Trade Organisation was supposed to conclude a ‘permanent solution’ to the problem facing countries that have no or inadequate drug manufacturing capacity so that they can have access to affordable medicines. The impasse that has taken place in the recent negotiations brings into focus the importance of the issue to the developing countries in the light of the global avian flu threat and the shortage of the anti viral drug to treat bird flu. This Third World Network web page includes a background note on the issue by Sangeetha Shashikant and the report on the talks by Martin Khor.
The GATS and South Africa's National Health Act
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
This new study shows how South Africa's flagship health legislation conflicts with binding commitments the former apartheid regime negotiated under the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This trade treaty conflict threatens to undermine the much-needed legislation and, if left unresolved, would make meeting the health needs of the majority of the population far more difficult. The study explores several options that South Africa has for resolving this conflict in favour of its health policy imperatives, but each entails risk. South Africa's dilemma should serve as a world-wide warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be far more attentive to negotiations that are now underway in Geneva to expand the reach of the GATS.
Access to medicines in under-served markets
DFID Health Systems Resources Paper
"Major changes in international trade, intellectual property (IP) protections and drug registration requirements are substantially affecting pharmaceutical markets, with significant implications for access to medicines by poor people. Within this framework, and drawing on legal, regulatory, economic and pharmaceutical industry expertise, the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has commissioned a series of seven studies. The studies, summarised in this paper, examine the policy implications of these trends for emerging producers of generic medicines such as India and China, and for poor people in developing countries.A key question is how strengthened intellectual property protections and heightened registration standards may or may not improve access to medicines in these currently under-served markets."
Africa faces bitter harvest as WTO subsidy talks stall
Tony Blair is running out of time on achieving the third and most controversial part of the 'Marshall Plan for Africa' he promised earlier this year: trade justice. With just weeks to go before critical World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong, Europe and the US are in deadlock over how far they should open up their markets to farmers from poor countries - and what they will demand from the rest of the world in return.
The equality predicament: report on the world social situation 2005
United Nations 2005
This report traces the trends and patterns in economic and non-economic aspects of inequality and examines their causes and consequences across and within regions and countries. It focuses on the gaps between the formal and informal economies and between skilled and unskilled workers, the growing disparities in health, education and opportunities for social, economic and political participation as well as analysing the impact of structural adjustment, market reforms, globalisation and privatisation on economic and social indicators.
World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development
The World Bank's annual World Development Report this year focuses on equity, arguing that inequality of opportunity is holding back prosperity and economic growth. This article from the Institute for Development Studies argues that the report fails to get to grips with what inequality really means: "The World Development Report for 2006 on Equity and Development (WDR 2006) has been described by Sanjay Reddy from Columbia University as reflecting the most progressive face of the World Bank. This is because it argues strongly on ethical and efficiency grounds for the need to tackle the gross disparities in opportunity for children born in different parts of the world. Reddy also finds that the theoretical construction of the report is 'rather clunky and appears to be the product of political compromise…but is workable'."
Have pharmaceutical companies come to the party in Africa?
Bowing to huge international pressure, major pharmaceutical companies have made significant efforts to make their patented antiretroviral drugs available in Africa while ensuring that they – not generic manufacturers – maintain market control in the continent. Globally, the ARV market accounts for less than 3% of pharmaceutical sales worldwide and Africa’s portion of this has been negligible. However, with the World Health Organisation’s campaign to get three million people on ARV treatment by the end of this year (the 3-by-5 campaign), there has been a scramble to ensure improved supplies.