The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded on 31 July 2011 in Washington, United States, drew over 1,000 attendees. According to the United Nations Development Programme, which attended the event, the emergence of new paths to development has grown along with the rise of middle- and low-income countries. However much of this growth has not been inclusive. A spokesperson for the UN Development Programme noted at the meeting that the empowerment of women was essential to the solid development of global international economies, a sentiment echoed by many others at the congress. Although 40% of participants were from the global South, one of the speakers, Sanjay Reddy expressed disappointment that the meeting was dominated by Northern development professionals, in particular those who appear to be engaged in for- profit contracting to execute development projects on behalf of organisations such as USAID. Reddy added that, if genuine grassroots development were to take place, SID should return to its original role of facilitating discussions between diverse groups, including voices that call for radically alternative methods to the current neoliberal agenda.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union (EU) met on 31 May 2011 in Brussels, Belgium to continue ongoing negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA). The ACP Ministers re-iterated their request for more flexibility on the part of the EU, including trade in medicines, and called for the reinforcement of the development components of EPAs. They also called for regional integration initiatives to be given precedence and for the preferential market access currently being provided under the EU’s EPA Market Access Regulation to be maintained and extended to other ACP countries until negotiations are concluded. In contrast, the EU Commissioner warned that the market access provided since 2007 to ACP countries that concluded EPA negotiations is temporary and predicated upon implementation of EPAs by ACP countries. He also announced that, owing to prolonged delays and stalemates in the negotiations, by the end of 2011 both parties will have to assess whether concluding negotiations is actually feasible within a realistic timeframe.
India and the European Union (EU) have signed an agreement that puts more stringent conditions on EU customs authorities that consider stopping shipments of generic pharmaceuticals passing through Europe. The EU has committed to change the regulation that led to seizures in 2008 of legitimate generics from India passing through the Netherlands and other European countries on their way to South America and Africa. The seizures had been initiated by European patent holders even though the shipments were in transit and not destined for European markets. A key element of the agreement is the core principle that ‘the mere fact that medicines are in transit through EU territory, and that there is a patent title applicable to such medicines in EU territory, does not in itself constitute enough grounds for customs authorities in any Member State to suspect that the medicines at stake infringe patent rights’. Only if there is adequate evidence of a likely diversion of medicines into the EU market, then can EU authorities have grounds for suspicion of infringement of intellectual property rights.
On his trip to South Africa on 18 July 2011, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, talked of the need to go beyond debt cancellation and aid and instead promote free trade with Africa. But ‘free trade’ on inequitable terms has been and will be of no benefit to Africa, the author of this article argues. Africa has much to learn from South Korea, the model to which Cameron refers as a successful example of free-market liberalisation. What Cameron failed to point out, the author notes, is that South Korea used a range of government interventions that are not accepted in free trade practice and are being denied to African governments. The author argues that African prosperity relies on a wholesale rejection of the western free trade model, which means protecting industries, developing alternative and complementary means of trading, control of food production and banking, progressive tax structures, controlled use of savings, and strong regulation to ensure trade and investment really benefits people.
The authors of this study developed a generic framework which depicts the determinants and pathways connecting global trade with the rise of chronic disease in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs). They then applied this framework to three key risk factors for chronic disease: unhealthy diets, alcohol and tobacco. This led to specific 'product pathways', which can be further refined and used by health policy-makers to engage with their country's trade policy-makers around health impacts of ongoing trade treaty negotiations, and by researchers to continue refining an evidence base on how global trade is affecting patterns of chronic disease. The authors argue the need for a more concerted approach to regulate trade-related risk factors and thus more engagement between health and trade policy sectors within and between nations. An explicit recognition of the role of trade policies in the spread of non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors should be a minimum outcome of the United Nations Summit on NCDs in September 2011, with a commitment to ensure that future trade treaties do not increase such risks.
The author of this article argues that intellectual property rights, in a number of ways, impede access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in most developing countries with heavy burdens of AIDS-related mortality and morbidity. He recommends that developing countries that lack the necessary pharmaceutical capacity should exploit emerging opportunities for South-South co-operation. While countries like Brazil and India have produced generic ARV drugs, most developing countries either do not have the technology to do so or they are “pressured” against doing so because of the consequences of violation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) enforced by the Word Trade Organisation. Most recently, Uganda entered into an agreement with Cipla, an Indian generic manufacturer of ARV drugs to open a drug plant in Uganda. Because such opportunities for South-South co-operation abound in contemporary global AIDS diplomacy, developing countries should ingeniously exploit them in ways that do not violate TRIPS. The impediments to this framework would include circumventing the hurdles posed by TRIPS as well as the pressure by global pharmaceutical corporate giants against such initiatives.
The objective of this study was to explore the possibility of asbestos exposure during the process of diamond mining. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis were used to identify asbestos fibres in the lungs of diamond mine workers who had an autopsy for compensation purposes and in the tailings and soils from three South African diamond mines located close to asbestos deposits. Tremolite-actinolite asbestos fibres were identified in the lungs of five men working on diamond mines. Tremolite-actinolite and/or chrysotile asbestos were present in the mine tailings of all three mines. Mesothelioma, asbestosis, and/or pleural plaques were diagnosed in six diamond mine workers at autopsy. The authors conclude that these findings indicate that diamond mine workers are at risk of asbestos exposure and, thus, of developing asbestos-related diseases. Even at low concentrations, asbestos has the potential to cause disease, and mining companies should be aware of the health risk of accidentally mining it. Recording of comprehensive work histories should be mandatory to enable the risk to be quantified in future studies, the authors argue.
Participants at an official high-level thematic debate on trade at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2011, criticised excessive trade liberalisation as damaging to the economies of least-developed countries (LDCs). President Banda of Zambia, who gave a keynote speech, also criticised the lack of a positive response from the European Union to African demands in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, noted that many LDCs have higher ratios of exports to gross national product than some developed countries. He argued it is the way in which the LDCs are integrated in trade that has been a disadvantage because LDCs are too dependent on raw materials export, and prices of commodities have had a long-term trend decline, thus causing major revenue and income losses. All speakers agreed that LDCs face the basic problem of supply capacity which hinders them from taking advantage of any market opening and that their exports outside of commodities therefore remain small. Khor emphasised that it is thus vital that LDCs be assisted to increase their capacity to produce in agriculture, industry and services, including health services.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced it will be entering a new phase in its Global Action Plan for Influenza Vaccines (GAP), in which the organisation will be giving more attention to the local health and policy environment. WHO held its first review of phase 1 of GAP on 12-14 July 2011. WHO’s estimate of the seasonal flu vaccine manufacturing capacities is 800,000 million doses per year, compared to 350,000 in 2006. The estimate rises to 1.7 billion doses by 2015 if all the projects going on now are successful. There are currently 37 manufacturers of influenza vaccine in the world, either operating now or operational by 2015. According to WHO, 10 manufacturers are in Europe, 14 in the Western Pacific region, 6 in the South East Asia region, and 5 in the Americas region. Included in the 37 are 11 new manufacturers in 11 low or middle-income countries are part of the GAP programme, which have been working with WHO to acquire technologies to produce influenza vaccine.
Across Africa, China has become known as the agent of mass construction, bartering infrastructural development – chiefly mining-specific – for long-term access to strategic resources. Through this mechanism, Ghanaian cocoa, Gabonese iron and Congolese oil have been swapped for construction of dams (Bui, Poubara, and River Dam), allowing Chinese corporations such as Sinohydro to capture Africa's hydropower market. The 'barter system' enables China to export goods and labour and to 'import' recycled project capital and African resources. In the process, the author of this article argues that China has activated the same 'Western' capitalist vehicles of engagement but with one noticeable difference: prior to Beijing's entrance, just 4% of foreign direct investment (FDI) was earmarked for infrastructure. China has constructed stadiums across the continent, as well as buildings and special economic zones. Though Zambia was pegged as the third largest recipient of Chinese investment in Africa, Zambian labour unions appear apprehensive about Chinese FDI as the means of national development, stating that Chinese FDI has had modest impact on national development, with overall negative impacts on the labour market. In Zambian mines, the bulk of the work is reported to be subcontracted to Chinese workers and companies, leading to complaint of displacement of local workers.