Health equity in economic and trade policies

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson dangled a carrot in front of SA's negotiators at the weekend, hinting at greater access to European markets in exchange for SA returning to the negotiating table to resolve a standoff over a stalled regional trade deal with the EU. But his promises may not be enough to persuade SA. SA's chief trade negotiator, Xavier Carim, said that improved market access - evidently offered on agriculture, fisheries and industrial goods - did not ease concern that EU demands would limit SA's policy options.

Given India's victory against Novartis in the drug company's challenge to section 3d of the India Patent Act and given Thailand's highly publicised campaign to issue compulsory licenses on both AIDS and heart disease medicines, we are now seeing a new wave of patent withdrawals and a growing wave of compulsory licenses. This reciprocal wave action creates a wider opening for continuing access to newer and lower costs medicines. But the promise of this opening will only be realized if more countries amend their patent acts to take advantage of the TRIPS-compliant, definitional flexibilities that India has enacted and if more countries use the TRIPS compliant flexibilities for issuing compulsory licenses for generic medicines that Thailand has used.

A brief look at each of the six negotiation regions gives a more detailed picture of the current state of play on the EPA negotiations. While all parties remain committed to concluding comprehensive EPAs, as confirmed in the joint review endorsed in May 2007, progress in the negotiations has been slower than expected. By October 2007, it became apparent that EPAs would not be concluded by the target date of 31 December 2007, set by the expiry of the WTO waiver covering the current preferential trade regime of Cotonou. In reaction to this, the European Commission issued a communication on 23 October 2007, which outlines a pragmatic approach to safeguard preferential market access for non-LDC countries from 1 January 20081. The communication aims at concluding WTO-compatible goods market access arrangements to be in order to extend the negotiation time towards complete EPAs while avoiding adisruption in trade. In line with this approach, a number of interim agreements were concluded over the last weeks of 2007 between the EU and ACP regions, subregions and individual countries. Trade in goods is the only key area that needs to be covered by an agreement to comply with WTO rules. Other areas, on which agreement has been found, are included in most interim agreements. The interim agreements contain rendezvous clauses to continue negotiations in 2008 towards full EPAs. A brief look in this report at each of the six negotiation regions gives a more detailed picture of the current state of play on the EPA negotiations.

With less than seven years to go before the attainment of the universal millennium development goals (MDGs), the southern Africa region is still battling with infrastructure issues which might stifle the region’s progression towards the achievement of the goals. In its January policy briefing Building Bridges Out of Poverty, the Southern Africa Trust examines how transport, energy and water infrastructure in the region can facilitate intra-regional trade and investment as well as sound management and development of water resources. This article discusses how infrastructure development can strengthen regional integration to overcome poverty in southern Africa.