This Analytical Note is part of a series of Fact Sheets designed to overview and assess the development implications of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which the EU is currently negotiating with 76 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). The purpose of these Fact Sheets is to examine the existing material on EPAs and to provide an analysis of their potential impact on ACP countries. The Fact Sheets seek to increase the understanding of the substantive issues at stake in the negotiations, thereby enabling policy-makers, lobbyists and campaigners to make informed decisions about how to engage with EPAs.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Aid for trade and financial assistance to implement the EPAs
South Centre Fact Sheet 6, May 2007
An analytical framework for trade in health services
Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Working Paper No. 441
The paper delivers an analytical framework for the assessments of this new sector of international trade which takes into account both the ‘general welfare aspects’ and the effects for the achievement of general ‘health system goals’. Trade in Health Services is split up according to the four modes of service supply introduced by the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). For each mode examples are enclosed and the current level of trade is analysed. It is also examined what are the major obstacles for trade in these modes and what liberalization perspectives are given. The subsequent discussion and plausibility considerations of how each mode may contribute to improve efficiency as well as equity in national health systems is a systematic starting point for further research. It provides a first insight in how trade in Health Services could help to overcome resource constraints in national health systems as well as allude to the potential risks of which sight shouldn’t be lost.
Current macroeconomic frameworks, challenges and alternatives to attain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Chipika J: Southern African Regional Poverty Network, June 2007
This paper discusses policies that have inhibited the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regions. Specifically, the paper argues that neo-liberal structural adjustment policies (SAPs) have exacerbated poverty in the region and that there is a need to balance the role of the private and public sector if the MDGs are to be achieved. The paper points to a number of negative experience and outcomes of structural adjustment in the 1980s. It describes that economic growth is stagnant or declining in many countries and poverty is increasing the context of rising inflation and unemployment. In addition, food shortages have increased particularly in Southern Africa, due to the combination of natural and policy related factors, and HIV and AIDS has ravaged the sub-continent. The paper outlines a number of economic alternatives to structural adjustment which have emerged in the region.
Getting the Regime Right — Brief on Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime
Elliott R: Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime is not delivering on the country’s pledge to help developing countries get affordable medicines. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network recommends a number of changes that will help fix the current, flawed Regime.
International Health Partnership launched in UK
Department for International Development (DFID): 5 September, 2007
Seven ‘first wave’ countries in Africa and Asia will join the new International Health Partnership which is supported by donor governments and agencies. The partnership was launched formally at an event at 10 Downing Street, London. The Prime Minister said: "There is no greater cause than that every man, woman and child in the world should be able to able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare. And our vision today is that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in history conquer polio, TB, measles and then with further advances and initiatives, go on to address pneumoccal pneumonia, malaria and eventually HIV/ AIDS.
International Health Partnership: A welcome initiative
Editorial: The Lancet, 370 : 801 (9590), 8 September 2007
On Sept 5, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched the International Health Partnership —a global "compact" for achieving the Health Millennium Development Goals—at a prestigious gathering at number 10 Downing Street. The support for this initiative is impressive. But what does the International Health Partnership (IHP) mean for people living in poorer countries? The IHP is an agreement between donors and developing countries. Global and country level partnerships will set out a process of mutual responsibility and accountability for the development and implementation of the national health plans of developing countries. The overall aim of the IHP is to improve the coverage and use of health services—whether through public or private channels, or through non governmental organisations—in order to deliver improved health outcomes, especially for the health-related MDGs, and other international commitments such as universal access to antiretroviral therapy. The IHP does not provide any new funding.
Kenyan hip-hop artists rap against Europe's unfair trade proposals
Nairobi Now (Arts and Culture Events): 12 September 2007
A group of university students under the group The Journey and Haven Entertainment organised a conscious hip hop festival to oppose the proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and Africa. This effort is part of a wider campaign by citizens, farmers' unions, civil society, and religious groups to stop the government from signing the proposed agreement which, according to economists and experts in international trade, are potentially detrimental to the development agenda and may exacerbate poverty in Kenya and other developing countries.
International Health Partnership
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability, 22 August 2007
The UK Prime Minister and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have released a joint statement on a new International Health Partnership, which will bring together major donor countries, including Britain and Germany, and key international agencies such as the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. The agreement was developed with bilateral, international health and funding agencies, developing countries, and foundations; it commits all artners to: working with country owned plans; creating a mechanism to agree donor support to national plans; coordinating their efforts on the ground; and focussing on the creation of sustainable health systems which deliver improved outcomes. Partners will work together to ensure that health plans are well designed, well supported and well implemented.
Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Inequalities: Consequences for Health and Quality of Life
Navarro V: Baywood Publishing
This book critically analyses the conventional wisdom in the political, economic, and academic establishments of neoliberalism and globalisation as good for people's health and quality of life.
Stop the EPA's offensive by the EU against the Southern African Development Community!
People's Summit, Southern Africa
Hundreds of representatives of social and labour organisations, faith based, community-based and health networks, small farmers, traders, women and youth organisations, and developmental, human rights and environmental NGOs from across the whole of the Southern African region gathered in a Peoples Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, 15-16 August 2007, parallel to the SADC Heads of State summit. They discussed many issues of common concern and agreed that there is now an urgent generalised threat hanging over the whole future of SADC. This arises from the insistence of the European Union (EU) that SADC, like other regional groupings in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (the ACP countries) must sign a far-reaching trade liberalisation agreement with the EU. Participants claim this has been misleadingly entitled an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), despite already witnessing the damaging effects of trade liberalisation.