British firms are reported to have acquired more land in Africa for controversial biofuel plantations than companies from any other country, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Half of the 3.2m hectares (ha) of biofuel land identified in countries from Mozambique to Senegal is linked to 11 British companies, more than any other country. There are no central records of land acquisitions in Africa, but research by the Guardian revealed 100 biofuel projects in sub-Saharan Africa by 50 companies in more than 20 countries. The authors note that the revelation of the central role of UK companies in biofuels coincides with a report from Oxfam forecasting that the price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years. The report identifies biofuels as a factor and demands that western governments end biofuel policies that divert food to fuel for cars.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
A large group of developing countries has submitted a proposal to amend the World Trade Organisation's Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to require the disclosure of origin of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge in patent applications. The proponents stressed that the change would help ensure that the utilisation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge would comply with the access and benefit-sharing legislation of the country providing genetic resources and traditional knowledge, that is, the country of origin. They call for acknowledgement that a legal obligation establishing such a mandatory disclosure requirement in patent applications will help prevent both misappropriation of genetic resources and the granting of erroneous patents and also enhance transparency about the utilisation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.
While China's relationship to Africa is much examined, knowledge and analysis of India's role in Africa has until now been limited but, as a significant global player, India's growing interactions with various African countries call for detailed analysis of the Asian giant's influence and its relations with the African continent. In this book, which enables readers to compare India to China and other 'rising powers' in Africa, expert African, Indian and western commentators draw on a collection of accessibly written case studies to explore inter-related areas including trade, investment, development aid, civil society relations, security and geopolitics.
As world market prices for crops such as grain and soybeans have risen, governments in countries that import food have realised they can no longer depend on the market for supplies. At the same time, predictions that food and water shortages are being exacerbated by climate change and expanding populations have convinced countries such as China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and others to buy large amounts of land in poor countries in Africa, according to this paper. Agribusinesses, government agencies, and investment funds alike have been acquiring long-term leases for more than 50 million hectares of land in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Mozambique. But in many cases the contracts are just a few pages long, and the land is sold for less than US$1 per hectare. These so-called “land grabs” are water acquisitions as well; some contacts include turning over water rights without a fee. And since most of the leases are for up to 100 years, the local population often loses the rights to its land and water for generations. Why are the governments in these African countries signing such fragile deals? Poor African nations hope to gain jobs and infrastructure development, the author concedes. Yet many local farmers living on land sold to foreign entities stand to lose much as most of the contacts to acquire the land were completed without local participation or notification.
The European Commission has issued a new draft customs regulation that it says addresses past concerns over wrongful seizures of generic drug shipments transiting through European ports. But the new regulation does not substantively change existing rules, it said, and civil society groups say it does not go far enough. The proposal does not explain that the customs regulation is of a procedural nature, and it does not change or add to the rules defining what an intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement is. In 2008, shipments of legitimate generic medicines transiting through Europe were detained by customs authorities on allegation of IPR rights infringement. This triggered the filing of disputes at the World trade Organisation (WTO). On 11 May 2010, India requested consultations at the WTO with the European Union and the Netherlands about seizures of generic drugs coming from India and travelling via the Netherlands to developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. India said those seizures were inconsistent with the obligations of the European Union and the Netherlands of various provisions of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The dispute is ongoing and remains at the consultation phase.
According to the author of this article, secrecy jurisdictions – or tax havens - act as financial sinkholes: places where vast sums of money flow between the legitimate world economy and the illicit underworld economy. The costs of financial sinkholes are borne by ordinary citizens throughout the world, not only by taxpayers in industrialised countries but also by many of the world’s poorest people. The author points to the flight of US$735 billion (in constant 2008 dollars) from sub-Saharan Africa from 1970 to 2008. Most of this disappeared into secrecy jurisdictions, with recorded African deposits in Western banks amounting to less than 6% of this amount. To put Africa’s capital haemorrhage into perspective, the total foreign debt of the same countries stood at US$177 billion at the end of 2008. In this sense Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world because its external assets far exceed its external liabilities. However the assets are private and hidden, whereas the liabilities are public, owed by the people of Africa through their governments. The author points to advocacy from groups like the Tax Justice Network, Global Financial Integrity and Global Witness, who have raised public awareness of these issues.
The author of this paper argues for public-private partnerships to help deliver locally produced generics in Africa, and against protectionism in favour of open market access. He points to promising developments, such as experienced Indian and Western pharmaceutical firms undertaking original research and development and partnering with firms in African countries. He believes this investment by reputable companies should help ensure quality drugs are produced by furnishing the technical expertise that overcomes capacity constraints. Local production enterprises in Africa will allow international companies to diversify their supply sources, the author argues, guarding against potentially disastrous shocks such as a natural disaster that would destroy an Artemisia crop and send the price of artemisinin-based malaria drugs skyrocketing. Local production partnerships could encourage trade, especially because the bulk active ingredients needed to produce them still come most efficiently from abroad. Partnerships between foreign pharmaceutical firms and African companies may also help train a pool of skilled workers, improving a country’s long-term development prospects.
In this study, the authors argue that an optimal drug registration approach for Africa should reliably evaluate safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs for African use. It should include African expertise, contribute to building African regulatory capacity, and, ultimately, expedite African access by reducing duplicative and sequential reviews by different regulators. However they present an overview of the current situation that shows the present system of drug approval to be far from achieving these goals, with inefficiencies in the use of regulatory resources and in the uptake of capacity-building opportunities for African regulators. As a result regulatory processes and decisions may not meet current needs. The authors recommend that countries institute formal twinned regulatory reviews, fund Centres of Regulatory Excellence in each of Africa’s main regions and conduct a strategic review of WHO drug pre-qualification disease and product priorities.
Despite the successes in using competition law to reduce drug prices in South Africa, the prospects of other countries in the region being able to utilise competition law and policy to attain similar objectives are not high, due to a lack of institutional capacity (in some cases) and a lack of expertise, the authors of this paper argue. By taking an initial focus on domestic legislation, SADC countries may ultimately pave the way for a form of regional harmonisation for competition policy. As developments in South Africa have shown, national competition policy can ensure that national markets function efficiently, assure consumers of competitive prices and product choices, and promote other such efficiency-plus objectives. However, it is true that market developments tend to outstrip policy and regulatory developments. This region demonstrates perhaps one of the most confusing and complex arrays of overlapping membership of regional trade organisations with various countries being members either of SACU, SADC or COMESA. Given the mix of multiple memberships of regional trading organisations in the region, it is suggested that the two most viable (but by no means exclusive) options to explore for a regional competition policy are COMESA and SACU.
This article looks at the main challenges to European Union-Africa relations in light of the EU-Africa summit held in Tripoli, Libya from 29-30 November 2010. The Tripoli meeting marked the third Africa-EU Summit since 2000. In 2007, both parties to the JAES pledged to work together to implement the Africa Health Strategy, the EU Project on Human Resources for Health, the Abuja commitment to dedicate 15% of government financing for health, and the European Programme for Action to Tackle the Shortage of Health Workers in Developing Countries. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa openly expressed his concern that after ten years of the partnership, there was still too little to show in terms of tangible implementation of the undertakings made in previous summits. He cautioned the summit against committing to another action plan when commitments made in the past have not been implemented. The author noted that for example the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, have become a contentious issue in EU-Africa relations, with clauses that may negatively impact on the production of affordable generic medicines for developing countries by rigorously protecting patent holders in developed countries.