On 25 September 2009, hundreds of farmers, traders, students, women groups and civil society from across Kenya congregated at Uhuru Park to proclaim their concerns about the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) currently under negotiation between the European Union (EU) and African countries. The protesters delivered a petition to the Ministry of Trade as well as Trade committee of the Kenyan parliament. Through a collective mass fax and e-mail action, more than 80 organisations in 30 countries across Europe, Africa and the Pacific have called on decision-makers to fundamentally change the course of the ongoing negotiations. The multiple messages are aimed at stressing the importance of bold committed African leadership displayed by only supporting trade and economic policies that lead to the development of their people.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
On 14 September, the governing Trade and Development Board (TDB) of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) began its fifty-sixth session with UNCTAD Secretary-General Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi stressing that the global financial and economic crisis presents an opportunity to find long-term, multilateral solutions to the cycle of financial crisis and unsustainable global imbalances. Amongst others, this year's TDB session will also be holding a high-level discussion on the global economic crisis and the necessary policy response. The mega-stimulus packages introduced by many governments appear to have had a decisive impact in slowing the global economy's descent, but Dr Panitchpakdi nevertheless ‘believes we must still continue to be cautious about the evidence for recovery, and in particular what this means for developing countries.’ He also referred to the so-called 'shadow banking system', which at its peak, held assets in the US of approximately $16 trillion, the collapse of which kick-started the global economic crisis.
Following the signing of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to negotiate an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, the Botswana government has been warned to exercise its rights in making sure that threats facing the private sector are taken into consideration. Dr Howard Sigwele, executive director of Delta Diaries, Botswana's first jointly owned citizen milk producing company, indicated that although there were benefits in the agreement in trying to enhance private sector participation in foreign markets, there were possible threats such as unregulated entry of goods and subsidised European Union imports into Botswana, undermining the performance of local business and lead to company closure. He warned about the possible entry of goods of inferior standard and possible importation of diseases and pests unless measures are taken to prevent this.
Authorities in India, the leading producer of generics in the world, have rejected applications for patents on two AIDS drugs, opening the way for cheaper generic versions to be developed and marketed. In the Gleevec case, the Swiss drug company filed a special petition, seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The petition was to be heard on 31 August but the matter was adjourned after the presiding judge recused himself. India’s patent office has rejected the patents for tenofovir and darunavir, which are expensive but needed for AIDS patients failing on their existing treatments. Brand-name producer Gilead also previously failed to win a patent for tenofovir in Brazil, according to Medicin Sans Frontieres (MSF). The rejection of the patents has yet to be confirmed by official sources. MSF credited Indian Law Section 3(d) with preventing the evergreening of drug patents and opening the way for generics competitors to enter the market.
The legitimacy of the intellectual property (IP) system depends on the correct balance between the public interest and the private privilege given to the IP holders. This balance has been disrupted by a one-size-fits-all global regime in the TRIPS agreement. Yet TRIPS has some flexibilities that can be used. Recently, developed countries have been promoting a TRIPS-Plus agenda that reduces or removes TRIPS flexibilities. Their IP enforcement programme has resulted in legitimate generic drugs of developing countries being seized in European ports while in transit to other developing countries. At the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), developing countries have not accepted the TRIPS-Plus proposals and are protesting against the actions on generic medicines. Issues covered here include the row over generic drug seizures, the recent controversies at the WIPO meeting on Patent Cooperation Treaty, the TRIPS-Plus enforcement agenda, and the move towards a ‘global IP infrastructure’.
The two-day Mini-Ministerial meeting of 36 trade ministers hosted by India on 3–4 September appears to have concluded with a few proposals on a process to ‘re-energise’ the World Trade Organization Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, but with no movement on substance. Virtually all developing country groupings endorsed the multilateral approach of negotiations and cautioned against the attempt to subvert the process through bilateral or plurilateral negotiations. They also endorsed the December texts as the basis of negotiations rather than unravelling the texts. This is presumably because the US is demanding even more concessions than what is outlined in the December text. In the corridors on the last day of the meeting on 4 September, one negotiator from an invited country said: ‘Not much has happened here but a discussion on process and reiteration of positions.’ A delegate from a G20 country stated: ‘The US came here, but is in no position to offer anything. They are demanding that we open the text and give more market access, but are not willing to offer anything in return.'
The statement covers the cooperation in the Southern African Development Community-European Community (SADC-EC) economic partnership agreement, and the implications for regional integration in Southern Africa. The statement proposes support for regional integration and development in Southern Africa, based on the 1999 Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA). The first Revision Agreement, which together with the Joint Action Plan for the SA-EU Strategic Partnership is argued to lay the ground for an enhanced and deepened relationship in existing and new areas of cooperation, including migration, health, space, energy, information and communication technologies (ICT) and maritime transport.
The major objectives of this paper are to analyse the inter-relationship among economic growth, inequality and poverty and to propose a typology of countries within sub-Saharan Africa based on the different initial conditions they face and that can be used to derive appropriate development strategies. In particular, an attempt is made at deriving distinct strategies that embrace growth patterns that are likely to reduce poverty in each separate group of countries. The choice of the most appropriate development strategy is clearly context-specific and, ultimately, has to be shaped at the individual country level. Yet, the advantage of a typology is to highlight and emphasises the importance of those key and distinct conditions and features that influence the development paths of different categories of countries sharing relatively similar conditions. In order to understand better the anatomy of the development process, the changing structure of growth throughout this process has to be explored. In a continent where most countries are still at an early development stage and where the majority of the people reside in rural areas and are employed in agriculture, understanding the structural transformation process and the role of agriculture as a potential engine of growth is of fundamental importance.
To date, claims about the likely development effects of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) have been speculative because the final details of the agreements were unknown. The conclusion of a full EPA with the CARIFORUM region and interim EPAs (IEPAs) with some African and Pacific states makes it possible to analyse what has actually been agreed and to assess the potential development effects. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the African IEPAs as they stand in early 2009. It also establishes the negotiations that remain to be completed and the challenges facing Africa in implementation, some of which require support from Europe. It provides both a summary of the principle features of very complex documents and also the foundations for the many follow-up studies that will be needed to look in more detail at specific country, sectoral and other specific features of the IEPAs.
This report presents the latest trends in patents, trademarks and copyrights. Patents, which are of direct relevance to drug prices and procurement, showed a slowdown in growth rate, with fewer patent filings and grants. In 2007, patent filings increased 3.7%, compared to a 5.2% increase in the previous year. Despite this slowdown, around 1.85 million applications were filed across the world in 2007. The figures show the early effects of the global economic downturn on patent filings and the available data for 2008 point toward a further slowdown in patent filings. Patent filings and grants have also become more concentrated. In other words, the majority of patent filings are from residents of industrialised countries and there is a strong relationship between the volume of patent filings and the level of GDP and investment in research and development. Residents of Japan and the United States own approximately 47% of the 6.3 million patents in force across the world. Since the late 1990s, patent filings have grown at a faster rate than patent grants (or rejections) in most offices, most notably at the patent office of the US. As a result, the number of unexamined (pending) patent applications has increased.