Several developing-country members of the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation have expressed concern and frustration at the lack of progress and direction of a WHO group tasked with charting the organisation's future action on intellectual property, innovation and health. These concerns were voiced at the WHO's Executive Board meeting being held on 22-30 January. At the end of the discussion on the item, the frustration was even more palpable because the Board itself could not seem to make any progress on the issue.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
WHO Executive Board unable to move IP Group process
Hong E: Third World Network, 2 February 2007
Declaration of the Abuja Food Security Summit
African Union: Summit on Food Security in Africa, Abuja Nigeria, 4-7 December 2006
Despite a wealth of stakeholder consultations, plans, recommendations, commitments and declarations, food insecurity in Africa remains at unacceptably high levels (27%). There is general concern that the implementation of Maputo and Sirte summit decisions is not moving at the right pace to make a significant contribution to the attainment of MDGs by 2015. In line with the NEPAD philosophy of increasing reliance on Africa's own resources, the challenge facing the 2006 Abuja Food Security Summit is to accelerate reduction of food and nutrition insecurity through fostering mind-set change in mobilisation and utilisation of African resources to implement a few quick wins at national, RECs and continental levels.
Development Tanzania: Sachs Says it is possible to meet MDGs
Nieuwoudt S: Inter Press Service News Agency, 22 January 2007
World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015. ‘‘We can still achieve the Millennium Development Goals if proper use is made of the powerful tools at our disposal. But two things are necessary: sustained partnerships between governments and civil society and sustained donor resource input’’. UN secretary general Kofi Annan commissioned the Millennium Project to develop an action plan against poverty under Sachs’ leadership.
Has globalisation passed its peak?
Abdelal R, Segal A: Foreign Affairs, January 2007
Not long ago, the expansion of free trade worldwide seemed inevitable. Over the last few years, however, economic barriers have started to rise once more. The forecast for the future looks mixed: some integration will probably continue even as a new economic nationalism takes hold. Although globalisation as a process will continue to sputter along, the idea of unrestrained globalisation will wane in force. Managing this new, muddled world will take deft handling, in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing.
Scrooge and intellectual property rights
Stiglitz JE: British Medical Journal 333: 1279-1280, 23 December 2006
At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of "intellectual property rights."
The new famines: Why famines persist in an era of globalisation
Devereux S: Routledge, 2007
Contemporary famines are either deliberately created or allowed to happen. This new book collection argues for a conceptual shift in famine analysis: from understanding famines as failures of food availability or access, to understanding famines as failures of response. New concepts introduced in this collection include ‘famine intensity and magnitude scales’, ‘pre-modern, modern, and post-modern’ famines, ‘hidden famines’, and ‘priority regimes’. Case studies include famines that have occurred since the 1980s in Ethiopia, Sudan, Malawi, Madagascar, Iraq and North Korea, and a ‘near-famine’ in Bosnia.
Vote buying in the UN Security Council
Woodward D: The Lancet 369: 12-13, 6 January 2007
In an increasingly globalised world, health is ever more affected by international institutions. Over the past 25 years, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have increasingly dominated policymaking in developing countries, leading to substantial effects on health. Furthermore, global threats to health, such as HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza, and climate change, need eff ective collective action at the international level. Therefore the system of global governance is of central, and growing, importance to health. However, global governance is becoming increasingly controversial, particularly in the case of global economic institutions.
AIDS drugs for Africa deal is off as pharma giants pull out
Townsend A: The Independent, 3 December 2006
Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, are reported to have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and AIDS patients in poor nations receive vital drugs. The agreement was drawn up during three years of talks between companies and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions worldwide.
An untapped supply of HIV/AIDS treatment
The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006
Thousands of people living with AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are going without treatment while the production line at a modern antiretroviral (ARV) factory in the east of the country lies largely idle. Pharmakina has produced generic ARVs since April 2005 in the eastern province of Bukavu, the first pharmaceutical firm to do so in central Africa, but it is now forced to await approval from the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs
Raja K: Third World Network Info Service on Health Issues, 30 November 2006
The World Health Organisation (WHO) needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs. AIDS treatment will not be sustainable unless international institutions get serious about the high cost of newer medicines. This warning comes from Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) the medical humanitarian organisation. MSF says that the WHO has failed to outline a strategy to help countries access these drugs which remain largely inaccessible in developing countries. Thailand uses compulsory licence for cheaper AIDS drug. Thailand, however, has for the first time announced it will issue a compulsory licence for the domestic manufacture of a key AIDS drug. The following articles report on both these issues.