The High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, which was held from 1–3 December in Nairobi, Kenya, encouraged developing countries – with support from developed countries and international organisations – to take concrete steps to make their cooperative efforts work better in tackling the serious challenges they faced in achieving socio-economic advancement. The conference highlighted the growing political and economic ties within the developing world as countries of the global South assumed leading roles in handling global issues ranging from economic recovery to food security and climate change. By adopting the final text of the Conference – known formally as the Nairobi Outcome Document – the participants recognised the increasing power of South-South cooperation over the past few decades. The document urges United Nations funds, programmes and specialised agencies to take concrete measures to support South-South cooperation.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The recent successful renewal of the mandate of the World Intellectual Property Organization Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) has inspired attempts to push discussion on biodiversity out of other fora. The World Trade Organization TRIPS discussions and the November 2009 meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity specifically dedicated to traditional knowledge heard proposal that all legal issues related to traditional knowledge should be dealt with by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
This review found that globalisation was clearly related to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in sub-Saharan Africa. It may be exerting other negative and positive impacts upon infectious and chronic non-communicable disease associations but current reporting on these is sparse. The predicted impact of these co-morbidities in the region is likely to be large. An increasing prevalence of diabetes may hinder efforts at tuberculosis control, increasing the number of susceptible individuals in populations where tuberculosis is endemic, and making successful treatment harder. Roll out of anti-retroviral treatment within sub-Saharan Africa is an essential response to the HIV epidemic however it is likely to lead to a growing number of individuals suffering adverse metabolic consequences. One of the impacts of globalisation is to create environments that increase both diabetes and cardiovascular risk but further work is needed to elucidate other potential impacts. Research is also needed to develop effective approaches to reducing the frequency and health impact of the co-morbidities described here.
Sub-Saharan Africa needs to double its infrastructure spending to US$93 billion a year, 15% of regional output, to drag its road, water and power networks into the 21st century. Research compiled by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) identified the continent's woeful electricity grids as its most pressing challenge, with 30 countries facing regular blackouts and high premiums for emergency power. Despite the gulf between its target figure and the $45 billion spent now, the report said governments could narrow the funding gap to $31 billion by making $17 billion in relatively simple efficiency gains, such as making more electricity users pay their bills. The report added that infrastructure improvements to date, mainly in telecommunications, had accounted for more than half of the rapid growth rates of recent years on the poorest continent. But frequent blackouts and poor roads still cause headaches and unnecessary costs for business and trade. In most African countries, particularly the lower-income countries, infrastructure emerges as a major constraint on doing business, depressing productivity by about 40%.
Starting July 2010, there will be free movement of people, labour and services across the East Africa Community (EAC). This follows the conclusion of the Common Market Protocol negotiations at the end of September. The heads of delegations of the five partner states signed the final draft protocol bringing to a close 18 months of intense haggling among the states. Each of the five states of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda had to cede ground or compromise for a deal to be reached. One area of contention that was referred from the April meeting in Kampala was the issue on permanent residence. A main issue was how many years can elapse before someone is eligible to enjoy permanent residence in another country. This decision will now be based on national laws. The other unfinished business was on use of identity cards across member states, right of establishment and the movement of people and workers.
The World Bank Group has extensive programmes in aid for trade across the spectrum of concessional lending to low-income countries through the IDA, non-concessional lending to middle-income countries through the IBRD, and private investments through the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector arm. In 2008, resources transferred through these three channels amounted to some US$22 billion, more than double the annual average in 2002-2005. Increasingly, governments are requesting aid for trade from the World Bank-today nearly 70% of country programmes agreed with the governments have trade-related activities. These programmes focus predominantly on infrastructure and building productive capacity, but they also include trade facilitation and trade policy. Among low-income countries, Africa is the largest beneficiary. If aid for trade is to continue to grow, two issues are critical. First, the multilateral development banks-collectively the largest source of aid for trade-are bumping up against capital constraints and may soon see their lending effectively capped. Second, without the capital increase, countries wishing to invest more in infrastructure will be forced to reduce their borrowings for health, education or other sectors.
Non-governmental organisations have expressed their satisfaction at the European Commission’s (EC’s) declaration that it would not put ‘undue pressure’ on African and other countries to conclude the controversial trade deals called economic partnership agreements (EPAs). ‘We are very satisfied that the campaign has been able to convince many people that the EPAs don’t lead to development and that the ACP countries have to be given time,’ Marc Maes from 11.11.11, a coalition of Belgian non-governmental organisations, has said. ‘But we have to be careful because rhetoric and practice are often very different.’ David Hachfeld of Oxfam International said: ‘If countries don’t want an EPA on the basis of the Cotonou agreement, the EC should ensure that they are not worse off and offer them alternative agreements.’ An alternative could be the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) offered by the EU to more-developed countries countries that grants them preferential market access for 66% of their products. Another option is the GSP Plus scheme, which gives them duty-free and quota-free market access for 88% of their products, provided they have ratified the relevant human rights and sustainable development conventions.
Protection of traditional knowledge under intellectual property rights may have a time limit, though determining duration of protection measures will be more difficult than it is with Western scientific innovation, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Director General Francis Gurry has said. WIPO members, at their annual meeting earlier this month, agreed to negotiate a legal instrument on traditional knowledge protection in the next two years. Finding ways to accommodate traditional knowledge, and also to deal with misappropriations from the past, is ‘the intellectual challenge’. But the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) now has a ‘clear mandate’ to tackle this challenge. The IGC received its strongest mandate yet at the assemblies, and is now tasked with undertaking text-based negotiations towards an ‘international legal instrument’ for the effective protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.
From the seven cases discussed in this paper, the authors observe that the patent systems in Europe and the United States are being used to promote the misappropriation of traditional knowledge and biological resources from the South. For example, the authors report that a German-based agriculture and healthcare giant corporate has staked a claim to the use of any extract from plants of the Vernonia genus in Madagascar for ‘improving the skin status’. The patent application appears to violate international law, as it duplicates traditional knowledge held by indigenous communities in Madagascar. Another firm is reported to have obtained a patent from the United States Patent Office that allows it to lay claim to extracts from the seeds of the Aframomum angustifolium, a native African plant, which it claims prevents ageing skin, and is the active ingredient in its highly profitable and costly beauty products. Some of the patent claimants say they intend to seek patents in South Africa and other African countries. The authors report that the study found little and, in some cases, no evidence of the existence of prior informed consent agreements for using the resources that form the subject matter of the patents, nor mutually agreed benefit sharing arrangements, as required by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Third EU-Africa Business Forum concluded its discussions in Nairobi, Kenya, (28-29 September 2009) with a consensus on the need for Africa to shift its policy objective from poverty reduction to the more dynamic goal of wealth creation. There was also broad agreement on the need for greater regional integration, increased investment and improved infrastructure. The EU has pledged some €5 billion in funding, 1.5 billion of which has been earmarked for the specific goal of promoting regional integration. Commenting on the Forum, Stefano Manservisi, the European Commission’s Director-General for Development noted that now, more than ever, good policy must be in place along with a sound enabling framework allowing the private sector access to credit, knowledge and skills. […] European Union companies were encouraged to increase investment in Africa to take advantage of the huge opportunities that currently exist on the continent. Other delegates noted that the continent offers impressive returns on investment and immense potential, particularly in areas such as agro-pressing, industrial production, construction and the service sector. They also pointed to the paramount importance of infrastructure and energy which feature prominently on Africa's development agenda and where opportunities were noted to exist for joint ventures.