One of the main agenda items of the 2008 SADC Summit is the launch of the Free Trade Area. Having completed the critical tasks of the SADC Trade Protocol, the SADC FTA was launched during the Summit on 17th August 2008 under the theme: “SADC Free Trade Area for Growth, Development and Wealth Creation”. SADC attained the Free Trade Area as of January 2008, although three of its Member States, namely Angola, DRC and Malawi are still addressing challenges facing them in the implementing the Protocol on Trade. The region was also reported at the Summit to have recorded significant progress and positive developments in the core areas of social and human development. In the health sector, positive results were recorded in combating HIV and AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. Measures were put in place to increase access to preventive and curative services. Consequently, prevalence and incidence rates for HIV and Malaria declined in certain population categories and some parts of the region, with a decline in both prevalence and incidence of HIV especially among the youth aged 15 to 24 years and pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics. A 90% reduction of malaria incidence was recorded in countries in the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative where malaria cross border control initiatives are being implemented. These emerging positive indicators are due to improvements and strengthening of health systems in Member States.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The year 2008 is halfway to the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Despite some progress, this article argues that they will not be achieved if current trends continue. Starting with the G8 meeting in Japan, rich countries must use a series of high-profile summits in 2008 to make sure the MDGs are met, and tackle both climate change and the current food crisis. Oxfam proposes an agenda into the G8 this year that includes action on specific areas: stop burning food and start supporting poor farmers; mend broken aid promises; support health, education, water and sanitation for all; and put women and girls first. The report points to a similar situation regarding climate change, where it argues that a lot of the money pledged to help poor communities to cope with the effects of changing weather patterns is simply being taken from existing aid budgets or being made into loans.
Concerns ran high in some developing countries last week that their voices have been largely absent from a draft set of standards for heightened intellectual property enforcement advancing rapidly at the World Customs Organization. With the draft standards sent early - and, some say, without mandate - to decision-making bodies at the WCO, the organisation looks poised to become the next major platform for debate on global enforcement of intellectual property, as members discuss the possibility of incorporating IP protection into customs law.
In the WTO negotiations, there is a push towards the liberalisation of new services sectors by countries. However it is felt that basic services should be excluded, such as education, health, water, energy and telecommunications from the text of the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services. These services are human rights that cannot be objects of private commercial relations and of liberalisation rules that lead to privatisation. The deregulation and privatisation of financial services, among others, are the cause of the current global financial crisis. Further liberalisation of services will not bring about more development, but greater probabilities for a crisis and speculation on vital matters such as food. The intellectual property regime established by the WTO has most of all benefited transnational corporations that monopolise patents, thus making medicines and other vital products more expensive, promoting the privatisation and commercialisation of life itself, as evidenced by the various patents on plants, animals and even human genes.
At its eighth executive board meeting in Geneva on 2 and 3 July, market-oriented drug purchasing mechanism UNITAID agreed to the principle of establishing a patent pool - that is, a collection of intellectual property assets with the consent of their rights holders, for easier licensing to third party manufacture or researchers. This “landmark” decision for drug financing in poor and underserved areas agrees on the usefulness of sharing intellectual property rights to lower costs and increase quality of needed medicines.
This report is the last in a series from NEF designed to stimulate progress towards a comprehensive and fair treatment of the crisis of sovereign debt. With the end of an unprecedented period of low interest rates now in sight, such a goal is needed more than ever. Debt relief isn’t working. Current approaches (HIPC and MDRI for poor countries and Paris and London Club renegotiations for middle-income countries) are not solving the problems of Third World indebtedness. HIPC and MDRI are indeed reducing debt burdens, but for a small range of countries, and at a high cost in terms of loss of policy space and after long delays, but non-HIPC poor countries also have major debt problems. Middle-income countries’ indebtedness continues to grow. There is a clear need for a new approach to resolving sovereign debt problems that is comprehensive, systematic, fair and transparent and above all, just. Responses from the creditors so far to criticisms such as those in the previous paragraph have been grossly inadequate. There is as yet no consensus about the way forward. This report aims to stimulate debate and help find a just solution to the debt crisis.
The International Monetary Fund no longer has the financial clout to fulfil its traditional role of lending out money to save crisis-stricken countries, according to a Bank of England report. In all cases the analysis suggests the present IMF lending framework may no longer be appropriate. The working paper is unique because most critics of the Fund have instead focused on the shortcomings of its management structure or economic analysis. It said that the Fund "is increasingly unlikely to provide financing on a sufficiently large scale to meet the demands of higher-risk members." The IEO report also urged the Fund to overhaul its governance structure, much of which is largely unchanged since the 1940s. Among its recommendations was a call to reform the selection process for managing director.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year, US$79-million plan to support Zambia's efforts to alleviate poverty and sustain economic growth. The new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) plan succeeds a previous arrangement successfully completed last year, the IMF said in a press release. The new PRGF arrangement will support the government's objectives of boosting economic growth and enhancing employment and income opportunities, especially for the poor, while maintaining macroeconomic stability. The PRGF is the IMF's concessional facility for low-income countries. PRGF loans carry an annual interest rate of 0.5 percent and are repayable over 10 years with a five-and-a-half-year grace period on principal payments.
The Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are the pillars of the African Union (AU), and have been recognised by the AU as the key vehicles for economic integration and cooperation in Africa. The 2003 Session of the AU Conference of African Ministers of Health (CAMH) considered and adopted, inter alia, recommendations on a proposal to establish Health and Social Affairs Desks within the RECs. The 2003 Maputo Session of the Assembly of AU Heads of State and Government duly endorsed the Report of the Ministers and their recommendations. This paper represents an attempt to assess the extent to which the 2003 decision of CAMH has been implemented. The researchers also argue that regional integration and cooperation should not be geared solely towards economic, trade or political purposes but to the social sector as well, and proposes a set of criteria as useful starting points for determining which social (i.e. health) activities can be undertaken at the regional and sub-regional levels.
At a hearing on 16 May 2008 in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, public health and health professionals will demand that corporate interests be balanced with public interest representation on US Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs) that advise the US Trade Representative (USTR) on trade policies affecting public health. Non-profit and public interest organizations have been systematically denied posts on industry-dominated trade advisory committees that impact the health of millions of people around the world.