Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) has said the glaring failure revealed in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) report on Zambia justifies the call for more investment in the social sector. Commenting on the contents of the MDG report that was released recently, CSPR assistant co-ordinator Gregory Chikwanka said the report's revelations heralded the need for the government to revisit the resource allocation procedures. The report states that of the 10 MDG targets, Zambia could probably achieve one while possessing the potential to achieve only six others.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
MDG report on Zambia justifies more social sector involvement
Poor Countries Fail To Take Advantage of WTO Accord on AIDS Drugs
Poor countries that fought to be able to import generic prescription drugs have failed to use changes to the WTO rules on intellectual property rights, reviving a row over who is to blame for the lack of treatment for millions of AIDS sufferers, reported Agence France Presse in March. According to Daniela Bagozzi, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, "nothing much has changed since August," when a compromise between the 146 members of the WTO broke an eight-month deadlock over the changes. "From what we know and what we've heard, no country has issued a demand for a compulsory license as authorized within the agreement," she said.
Robbing the poor to pay the rich
This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the "Doha Declaration" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. The paper states that the U.S. is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
US AIDS Czar Undermines WHO Initiative
Sanjay Basu
In May 2003, at its annual World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced a modest proposal: that it would provide the technical and organisational support to provide 3 million people in poor countries with antiretroviral treatment by the year 2005. This "3-by-5 initiative" was minor in one sense, in that it would provide treatment to only about 5 percent of those in need. But in another sense, it was a major step forward, particularly because the WHO proposed a novel manner of delivering the anti-HIV medicines: combining the drugs into a "fixed-dose regimen", a combination pill containing three drugs in one capsule, allowing an infected person to take only one pill twice per day for a complete HIV-treatment regimen. Fixed-dose combinations are cheaper and easier to take than the existing HIV treatment protocol; taking two fixed-dose combination pills a day for a year costs $140 per patient, compared to about $600 per year for the normal regimen of six pills per day.
Further details: /newsletter/id/30350
WTO members must commit to Doha, says MSF
MSF is concerned that further proliferation of so-called 'TRIPS plus' provisions in free trade agreeements negotiated by the United States may jeopardise the progress that has been made on access to medicines. This may have enormous consequences for the health and life of millions of people, says MSF, and this is particularly so given the deadline of 1st January 2005 after which pharmaceutical product patent protection has to be provided by all non-Least Developing Country Members. MSF says in a letter to EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy that the adequate protection of public health demands that WTO Members be permitted to give full effect to the letter and spirit of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health (“Doha Declaration”) in their domestic and/or regional legislation.
Further details: /newsletter/id/30349
Health, Wealth and Welfare
Finance & Development - Quarterly magazine of the IMF
The authors explore the economics of health and development, arguing that new evidence coupled with a wider perspective suggest sizable economic returns to better health. Drawing on studies of human welfare, they say that past estimates of economic progress have been understated and that recent economic losses caused by HIV/AIDS are likewise being understated if economists rely on GDP per capita as a yardstick. A better indicator is "full income"- an assessment of economic welfare that captures both the value of changes in life expectancy and income as measured in national accounts. For Africa, they say, this new yardstick "signals catastrophe ahead".
Medicines, Patents and Trips
The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) introduced intellectual property rules into the multilateral trading system for the first time, with profound consequences for developing countries. But the high cost of AIDS treatments has injected an ethical element into the TRIPS debate, posing new problems for the pharmaceuticals industry.
Robbing the poor to pay the rich?: how the United States keeps medicines from the world’s poorest
This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the "Doha Declaration" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. The paper states that the U.S. is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
SADC on track for free trade area by 2008
The SADC region is on track towards meeting the major objective of its trade protocol which is to “achieve a Free Trade Area by 2008, when substantially all trade would be dutyfree.” Implementation of the SADC Trade Protocol and other instruments affecting the economic development of the region has shown remarkable progress in 2003, the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr Prega Ramsamy said in his year-end briefing. The Trade Protocol is the most important legal instrument in the region’s quest for economic integration, and is in its third year of implementation since ratification in January 2000.
Development and international capital flows
The movement of private capital into developing economies has stalled. Moreover, the flow of private capital is often concentrated, fickle and reversible. Recent research has looked at the potential changes that could be made to the international financial system to influence private investors and lenders and increase the size, regularity and geographical spread of the flow of capital to poor countries. The expansion of private capital flows to developing countries which took place in the early 1990s has not continued. Crises in emerging markets and an increased aversion to risk on the part of investors and bankers have led to developing countries having limited access to sufficient – and sufficiently long-term – flows of private capital. The volatility of these flows to emerging markets has had a grave impact on economic development. This is according to research from the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Oxford’s Queen Elizabeth House.