African, Caribbean and Pacific countries have two more years to negotiate economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU), before the decision is taken to withdraw their free access to the EU market, according to amendments to the market access regulation adopted on 13 September 2012. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to extend the 2014 deadline proposed by the Commission and give ACP countries until 2016 to ratify their EPAs before losing the right to duty-and-quota-free access to the EU that they have been enjoying since 2007. The content of the EPAs have been contested in some countries in Africa. MEPs consider that unlimited and unconditional preferences are not a sustainable option but also agree that the EU should allow them a ‘realistic timeframe’ to work towards ‘fair and development-focused’ EPAs with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) partners. Eight countries have not ratified EPAs: Botswana, Namibia, Cameroon, Fiji, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Swaziland.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has begun its court case to appeal in the Indian Supreme Court in a final bid to overturn a ruling earlier this year to prevent the company from renewing its patents on life-saving drugs. If Novartis wins the appeal, it will undermine a key public health safeguard in Indian patent law specifically designed to prevent drug companies from abusive patenting practices that keep medicine prices high, says international humanitarian medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which relies on affordable generic drugs produced in India to carry out its work in 68 countries. MSF alleges that, for the past six years, Novartis has been trying to browbeat India into changing Section 3d of India’s patent law, which says that a new form of a known medicine can only be patented if it shows significantly improved therapeutic efficacy over existing compounds. This is a provision to stop the common industry practice of extending, or ‘evergreening,’ their patent monopolies for routine modifications of known compounds. Section 3d, which is in line with international trade rules, formed the basis for Novartis not being granted a patent for its cancer drug imatinib mesylate (marketed as Gleevec) in 2006, as Novartis’ patent application was on a new form of the imatinib molecule already described several years previously in patents in the United States and other developed countries.
Countries have reached universal health coverage by different paths and with varying health systems. Nonetheless, the trajectory toward universal health coverage regularly has three common features, identified in this paper. The first is a political process driven by a variety of social forces to create public programmes or regulations that expand access to care, improve equity, and pool financial risks. The second is a growth in incomes and a concomitant rise in health spending, which buys more health services for more people. The third is an increase in the share of health spending that is pooled rather than paid out-of-pocket by households. This pooled share is sometimes mobilised as taxes and channelled through governments that provide or subsidise care – in other cases it is mobilised in the form of contributions to mandatory insurance schemes. The predominance of pooled spending is a necessary condition (but not sufficient) for achieving universal health coverage. The authors describe common patterns in countries that have successfully provided universal access to health care and consider how economic growth, demographics, technology, politics, and health spending have intersected to bring about this major development in public health.
Much has changed in the world since economic partnership agreements (EPAs) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries started 10 years ago. Emerging developing countries have increased their share of the world market and China has become one of the largest trading nations, while ACP countries have diversified trading partners and external funders. Today both the EU and the ACP countries struggle with the mess that the extended and deadlocked EPA negotiations have created. The interim EPAs have complicated the negotiations even further, causing rifts in the regions, and the refusal of the EU to swiftly amend them left the negotiations stuck with protracted discussions on contentious issues. The author of this article calls on the EU not to force ACP countries to accept agreements simply to avoid losing trade preferences. And he argues further that it is a problem when trade negotiations are held behind closed doors and policies are based on secret (unless leaked) mandates, with hardly any parliamentary involvement. Economic reform is too important to all layers of society to be left to behind closed door negotiations.
In this report, the authors consider the four biggest global agricultural commodity traders: Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus, often collectively referred to as ‘the ABCD companies’. The ABCD companies are often invisible in policy debates about farmers and consumers, and they are careful about where and when they get involved in such debates, rarely seeking the limelight. The report looks at critical issues in agriculture and food security, such as the ‘financialisation’ of agricultural products, the emergence of Asian competitors to the ABCDs and the impact of the large-scale biofuel industry on food security. The authors argue that food price volatility is a problem and commodity speculation and biofuels, alongside other factors such as export bans, are helping to drive volatility. The role played by the ABCD trading firms is important, but that how to address them and limit their power is not obvious, and regulations and changes will probably need to target broader reforms. But understanding the economic and political power of the ABCDs is essential to developing policies that will protect the interests of smallholder farmers and poor consumers in developing countries, the authors conclude.
Although technology transfer and innovation feature in the final outcome of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), held 20-22 June 2012, intellectual property rights (IPRs) - which are closely related to them - are barely mentioned, according to this brief. While the mention of IPRs in the Rio+20 outcome document signals their relevance for efforts to achieve sustainable development, no consensus was reached on how to ensure they are equitable and relevant to green technology. However, the stalemate may be addressed in several ways, the author proposes. Clear parameters are needed to foster a more constructive and pragmatic dialogue. Intellectual property should be seen in a broader context of appropriate policies, adequate institutions and human resources to both encourage green innovation and to ensure that its benefits are widely diffused. Other recommendations include improving access to technological information on green technologies, facilitating licensing of green technologies, fast-tracking green patents and ensuring open innovation for sustainability.
According to this study, the rate of increase in consumption of ‘unhealthy commodities’ - namely soft drinks, processed foods, tobacco and alcohol - is fastest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with little or no further growth expected in high-income countries (HICs). The pace at which consumption is rising in LMICs is even faster than has occurred historically in HICs thanks to multinational companies, which have now achieved a level of penetration of food markets in middle-income countries similar to what they have achieved in HICs. Higher intake of unhealthy foods correlates strongly with higher tobacco and alcohol sales, suggesting a set of common tactics by industries producing unhealthy commodities, the authors argue. Contrary to findings from studies undertaken several decades ago, urbanisation no longer seems to be a strong risk factor for greater consumption of risky commodities at the population level, with the exception of soft drinks. Rising income has been strongly associated with higher consumption of unhealthy commodities within countries and over time, but mainly when there are high foreign direct investment and free-trade agreements. Economic growth does not inevitably lead to higher unhealthy-commodity consumption.
As the nineteenth International AIDS Conference took place in Washington DC, thousands of protesters marched on the White House with a set of demands to end the epidemic. The march consisted of a coalition of AIDS advocacy and activist groups organised under the mantra ‘We Can End AIDS’. At the forefront were calls for an end to free trade deals that protesters argue make vital AIDS medicines unaffordable. They pointed out that free trade deals with the Barack Obama administration contain excessively stringent protections for pharmaceutical patents on AIDS drugs. A spokesperson for the demonstration urged governments to accept recommendations related to intellectual property rights in a July 2012 report issued by the Global Commission on HIV and The Law (included in last month's newsletter), an independent high-level legal commission made up of former heads of state and leading legal, human rights and HIV experts. The Commission recommended a moratorium on TRIPS patent enforcement on pharmaceutical products, which they argue will allow developing countries to manufacture low-cost generic medicines urgently needed for their populations.
Local users are now the main source of electronic waste in Africa, but illegal imports of old computers, televisions, and other electronics devices from Europe, Asia, and North America still make their way there. That’s the finding of Where Are WEEE in Africa?, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report about waste electronic and electrical equipment—also known as WEEE, or e-waste—in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria.1 A large portion of these imports are of good quality, have a decent life expectancy, and bring many socioeconomic benefits, according to the report, but the rest is hazardous junk that is often resold and recycled under unsafe conditions. This article discusses the findings from the Where Are WEEE in Africa? report and the problems of its safe recycling and disposal.
Traditional long-established food systems and dietary patterns are being displaced in Brazil and in other countries in the South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) by ultra-processed products made by transnational food corporations (‘Big Food’). This displacement, the authors of this paper argue, is increasing the incidence of obesity and of major chronic diseases and affects public health and public goods by undermining culture, meals, the family, community life, local economies, and national identity. In Brazil, the penetration of transnational companies has been rapid, but the tradition of shared and family meals remains strong and is likely to provide protection to national and regional food systems. The Brazilian government, under pressure from civil society organisations, has introduced legislation to protect and improve its traditional food system - by contrast, the governments of many industrialised countries have partly ceded their prime duty to protect public health to transnational companies. The authors recommend that the experiences of countries like Brazil in the South that still retain traditional food systems should be used as a basis for policies that protect public health.