The idea that Africans have never had it so good is rapidly becoming economic orthodoxy. This article comments that foreign investors, media and politicians from William Hague to Jacob Zuma have championed a narrative usually summed up in two words: "Africa rising". However the author asserts that the majority of Africans themselves feel that the picture is far less rosy, complaining that the continent's much vaunted economic growth is failing to trickle down to their daily lives, according to the biggest survey of its kind. "After a decade of growth in Africa, little change in poverty at the grassroots," is the title of a report by the Afrobarometer research project, covered in the article which questioned 51,605 respondents in 34 countries from October 2011 to June this year. He reports critics who have warned that the boom is benefiting only a narrow elite while leaving the poor and jobless behind, exacerbating inequality and potentially sowing seeds of unrest. The wave of "Afro-optimism" should be qualified, they argue.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The East African Community (EAC) modeled on the EU has enormous potential and resources. Resolving political differences and harmonizing with other regional blocks remains the foremost challenges. The East African Community (EAC) heads of state are due to sign a monetary union paving a way for a single currency for Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and those other countries that will join the community later on. The benefits of monetary union include a single currency; low transaction costs for business people; tuition and visa fees of the same value in all the countries; amongst others. The author explores the geopolitical, demographic and resource potentials for the east African community. The paper also argues that there is no single formula for regional integration. Rather than being competitors, the various regional blocks provide avenues for more complex and beneficial collaboration in the continent.
According to 2012 estimates, internet penetration in Africa has reached 15.6%. Though the actual number of people on whom the internet has an impact is undoubtedly much higher, this statistic does demonstrate a significant infrastructural disparity between Africa and other continents. Currently, this connectivity gap is being filled by other media, such as in the astonishing growth rate in the African mobile market. Radio remains one of the cheapest, most versatile and most widespread forms of mass communication there is and a powerful tool for African educators, despite its lack of interactivity. In this paper the author explores the opportunities of combining the pervasiveness of radio with the enhanced connective power of the internet. The paper describes trials to test the viability of white space broadband technologies to extend information access in several African countries in schools, healthcare centres and libraries.
Global spending on prescription medicines will accelerate next year to exceed $1tn for the first time, fuelled by the launch of more innovative drugs and rising health expenditure in emerging markets led by China. The rise was projected by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The rise is attributed in part to emerging markets, where rising demand for healthcare paid out of pocket by the growing middle class is being matched by an expansion in universal health coverage programmes to extend provision, with targeted public health policies such as rising vaccination rates. The jump comes at a time of growing use of cheaper off-patent generic medicines, predicted to grow from 27 per cent to 36 per cent of the global market by 2017 and as high as 63 per cent in the fast-growing emerging economies. The report projects that two-thirds of the total medicines market in 2017 will be accounted for by the eight markets of the US, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain, as well as China and Japan, which will also be responsible for nearly 60 per cent of the total growth in spending.
Emerging regional powers in the South have produced powerful finance capitalists. In this paper an example is given of an Egyptian firm buying land, rights to water and precious metals in other African countries. Consolidation of the formal economies of Southern countries has meant not only expansion into existing markets but ‘diversification’ into new markets, domestically and regionally. Allied with global governance institutions, the author argues that such finance capitalists represent greater control over vital resources and distribution routes for private wealth accumulation.
External challenges to health systems, such as those caused by global economic, social and environmental changes, have received little attention in recent debates on health systems’ performance in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). One such challenge in coming years will be increasing prices for petroleum-based products as production from conventional petroleum reserves peaks and demand steadily increases in rapidly-growing LMICs. Health systems are significant consumers of fossil fuels in the form of petroleum-based medical supplies; transportation of goods, personnel and patients; and fuel for lighting, heating, cooling and medical equipment. Long-term increases in petroleum prices in the global market will have potentially devastating effects on health sectors in LMICs who already struggle to deliver services to remote parts of their catchment areas. The authors propose the concept of “localization,” originating in the environmental sustainability literature, as one element of response to these challenges. Localization assigns people at the local level a greater role in the production of goods and services, thereby decreasing reliance on fossil fuels and other external inputs. Effective localization will require changes to governance structures within the health sector in LMICs, empowering local communities to participate in their own health in ways that have remained elusive since this goal was first put forth in the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care in 1978. Experiences with decentralization policies in the decades following Alma-Ata offer lessons on defining roles and responsibilities, building capacity at the local level, and designing appropriate policies to target inequities, all of which can guide health systems to adapt to a changing environmental and energy landscape.
This report from the consultations at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)suggests that the United States does not support a focus by the WIPO on patent flexibilities, an issue that developing countries consider to be central to their development concerns. WIPO’s work on patent flexibilities, including on exceptions and limitations to patent rights, has long been encouraged by developing countries participating in WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP). In recent years proposals have been submitted by the Development Agenda Group of several developing countries, the Africa Group and Brazil to deepen analysis on patent flexibilities, which they consider to be central to development concerns. A work program had been agreed on at the last session of the SCP in February 2013 after intense consultations on the following topics: (i) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights; (ii) Quality of Patents, including Opposition Systems; (iii) Patents and Health; (iv) Confidentiality of Communications between Clients and their Patent Advisors; and (v) Transfer of Technology. However, not all WIPO delegations were agreeable to enhancing of WIPO’s work on patent flexibilities. In a lengthy intervention at the Assemblies on 26 September on the agenda item on the SCP, the US expressed its intention to limit WIPO’s work on patent flexibilities. Its sentiment was not shared by developing countries that intervened on the agenda item. Instead they called for more work to be undertaken on the topics of exceptions and limitations to patent rights, the relationship between patents and health, and the improvement of patent quality.
In this paper the author argues that Brazil follow the same route as India and continue to adopt and apply the regime of absolute novelty to prevent non-innovative patents from being unduly granted. They argue that the patent system should respect Constitutional duties to promote technological, economic and social development, especially as Brazil’s path has implications for other developing countries that are affected by intellectual property rights related to medicines and other pharmaceutical products.
There is a lack of effective and affordable technologies to address health needs in the developing world. In this paper, the authors argue that we can better develop standards for global health technologies if we learn lessons from other industries, such as by speeding the pace of innovation, unlocking health systems from single providers and approaches, and lowering barriers to entry. The authors consider relevant cases of standards development from other industries and propose that standardised platforms can lower barriers to entry, improve affordability, and create a vibrant ecosystem of innovative new global health technologies.
A recent European Union (EU) regulation on customs enforcement of intellectual property rights (N° 608/2013) has raised concerns among civil society actors who find that the regulation might not be an improvement over its previous version under which seizure of legal generic medicines in transit occurred a few years ago, leading to a World Trade Organisation dispute. Civil society organisation, Act-Up Paris has said the new regulation does not solve the problem as it continues to allow the seizing of goods over a simple suspicion of ‘intellectual property’ infringement without checking beforehand whether these goods are headed to the European territory or just in transit. The group argue that the EU did not take into account the December 2011 Court of Justice of the European Communities’ decision which stated that goods coming from a third-party State could not be described as ‘counterfeit goods’ or ‘pirated goods’ just by entering the customs territory of the EU. The in-transit medicines are not intended for commercialisation in EU territory and thus intellectual property status according to the national law of EU countries should be irrelevant. The EU is standing by its new regulation.