Health equity in economic and trade policies

The African Civil Society Coalition on IGWG statement reiterates commitment to the ongoing WHO initiative to develop a Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. It reaffirms that there is an urgent need for action to improve access to medicines for people in developing countries. People cannot access the medicines they need; The economic, social and political determinants of illness are not being sufficiently addressed; The pharmaceutical market is not driven by public health interests, but by commercial interests; Patent protection and high prices are two of the barriers blocking poor people’s access to medicines; Funding for research, development and access (RDA) to medicines is insufficient; There is a lack of innovation for medicines for many of the diseases prevalent in our countries; Health interests of poor people are neglected by the profit-driven pharmaceutical market.

As the recently initialled interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) continues to take centre stage, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Africa have vowed to step up their stop-EPA campaign saying the pact has contentious issues. CSO's converging in Kampala for a three-day eastern and southern Africa regional forum reported concern about some clauses in the agreement, which they contend are not developmental and should be rolled back. They cited clauses which call for free trade opening, non application of export taxes and the provision that once you sign an agreement it can't be open for negotiations.

This document presents the first volume of results from a survey on the Paris Declaration. It provides an overview of the key findings across the 34 countries involved, as well as assessing the survey process and setting out key conclusions and recommendations. Key implications of the survey that are highlighted include higher expectation levels for reform, deeper ownership and more accountable institutions, and increasing aid efficiency together with donor harmonisation. The authors suggest that aid effectiveness issues and results need to be discussed more explicitly at country level, and credible monitoring mechanisms need to be developed. If countries and donors are to accelerate progress towards achieving the Paris Declaration commitments, it is recommended that: partner countries must deepen their ownership of the development process; donors need to support these efforts by making better use of partners' capacity; to further harmonisation, donors must work aggressively to reduce the transaction costs of delivering and managing aid; and to begin addressing mutual accountability commitments, countries and donors should clearly define a mutual action agenda.

Trade talks between the European Union and southern African countries have opened up serious differences between Europe and South Africa, and between South Africa and her neighbours. At the heart of the difficulties are the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) which countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping are negotiating to get preferential access to European markets. A number of southern African countries have just signed an Interim EPA (IEPA) with Europe but South Africa has baulked at signing, threatening the future of the Southern African Customs Union – the world's oldest.Resolving the difficulties will require a lot of political will and sensitivity from both South Africa and the EU, writes AllAfrica guest columnist Nkululeko Khumalo of the South African Institute of International Affairs.