In this policy brief, the authors argue that mineral wealth can be harnessed for equitable and sustainable development if countries: design and implement comprehensive, inclusive and rights-based social policies; build strong democratic institutions; and develop the policy space to foster productive diversification while safeguarding macroeconomic stability. Public revenues generated through mineral production can provide a starting point for building state capacity that delivers on economic and social development objectives. States should enhance their capacity to strategically mobilise and allocate resources, the authors argue, as well as enforce standards and regulations, and establish social pacts through funding, delivering and regulating social services and social programmes. For countries that are dependent on mineral revenues, social policy is a crucial instrument to harness the development potential of mineral wealth while helping to avoid the pitfalls associated with the resource curse.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
From a mere US$2 billion in 1999, annual Sino-African trade has now reached $160 billion, making China a leading trade partner for Africa. China’s economic cooperation with Africa is also fuelled by investments and aid. In this report, CCS argues that Africa needs to include transparency, governance and public service delivery are included in the agenda for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which was set up in 2000 to formalise bilateral engagement between China and Africa.
The European Union (EU), as part of the G-20, has backed the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GAFSP) and has given the World Bank a lead role in operationalising the programme. However, the authors of this article argue that this programme will make small farmers dependant on genetically modified seed technology, and criticises the programme as being a way of legitimising land acquisition by agribusiness in the name of increased land investment and higher agricultural productivity. The GAFSP is supposed to promote agricultural productivity but analysts agree that the kind of productivity this describes is one of intensification of agribusiness. The authors call on the EU and the rest of the G-20 to scrap solutions that increase neoliberal free trade. The authors propose options for trade in the region based on solidarity and complementarity with food sovereignty as a core principle.
Recent government actions by Indonesia and India to issue compulsory licenses will enable access to cheaper medicines in Asia to treat serious ailments, especially HIV and AIDS, cancer and hepatitis B. The supply of generic medicines, either through import or local production, has been the major method of reducing prices and making medicines affordable. In 2003, Malaysia became the first developing country to issue a compulsory license to a local firm to import medicines from India to treat HIV and AIDS, with Indonesia, Thailand and India following suit. In September 2012, Indonesia issued compulsory licenses to enable local manufacturers to make, import and sell generic versions of seven patented drugs used for treating HIV, AIDS and hepatitis B. The author suggests that countries in Africa follow this precedent.
Negotiators from 46 Least Developed Countries met in Nairobi on 29 October 2012 to develop a common position to be presented at the November climate talks in Doha. The technical experts said that developing nations will agree on shared goals, which include establishment of a new climate treaty, financing and technologies required to accelerate green transition. Kenya's Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, Ali Mohammed, said that the global South has borne the brunt of negative impacts of climate change despite minimal contribution to green house gases responsible for warming the planet. He endorsed the multilateral process of the climate talks, which provides vulnerable developing countries with a forum for participating in global discussions and agreements. At the same time, developing countries should strengthen their negotiation capacity to influence a positive outcome of the Doha climate talks and overcome roadblocks in their efforts to table their concerns. Developing countries are in agreement that financing for climate adaptation, operationalisation of a green climate fund and the future of Kyoto protocol are key issues that should be prioritised at the Doha meeting.
Earth Grab analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using growing concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering 'quick fixes'. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a 'greener' economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy. The book exposes how a biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It also shows how the world’s largest agribusiness companies including Monsanto, BASF, Dupont and Syngenta are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be 'climate-ready crops'. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world – something peasant farmers already know how to manage – these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. These crops are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the gluttony of corporate shareholders for profits.
The world's wealthy countries often criticise African nations for corruption but shares culpability in not tackling money laundering or the anonymous off-shore companies and investment entities that enable it. In this investigative piece shown on Al Jazeera, Zimbabwean journalist Stanley Kwenda takes a journey through the world of offshore banking.
Following a visit to Swaziland, a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a press release noting that a budget surplus of 1% of GDP targeted for the 2012 fiscal year is unlikely to be met without additional expenditure cuts. The mission recommended a reduction in the wage bill of 300 million emalangeni (US$3.4 million), cuts in 'non-priority' recurrent expenditures and implementation of an Enhanced Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme. The IMF acknowledged that these cuts will imply sacrifices from Swazi society, and proposed that the basic needs of the most vulnerable be protected. The delegation further recommended that subsistence farmers have access to title deeds to give them collateral to raise funds for basic improvements such as irrigation systems to increase their yields.
This article reports the results from a research project on farmers’ and pesticide dealers’ knowledge and practice when handling pesticides in two districts of Uganda. In Uganda the number of farmers using pesticides is growing because of the evolution of the farming from mainly organic subsistence farming to a mix of cash crop and subsistence farming involving the use of increasing amounts of pesticide. This research project took place in the districts of Wakiso and Pallisa, Uganda, in January and February 2011. In all, 24 small-scale farmers and 20 pesticide dealers were observed and interviewed. Researchers observed many health and environmental problems in the use of pesticides in Wakiso and Pallisa, with faulty equipment, exposure of children to drift spray and environmental pollution. However, no pesticides classified as WHO class Ia or Ib were found apart from dichlorvos. The main problems were found to be a lack of use of personal protective equipment and the farmers’ failure to follow the instructions for the correct handling of pesticides. Training for both farmers and pesticide dealers could be a way to solve the problems. Moreover, the instruction for use should be adapted to the reality of the small-scale farmers.
South Africa grants almost every patent application it receives, making its patent regime one of the world’s most lenient, according to this article. While pharmaceutical companies cash in, patients face staggering healthcare costs, and medicines like cancer treatments, third-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) and treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) are often priced out of reach. According to activists from Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and the South Africa AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), easy patents mean companies can extend their exclusive right to manufacture and sell certain drugs through a process known as evergreening, where minor changes are made to a drug and it is re-issued with a new patent, the process being repeated indefinitely.. The most recent review of South African patents, conducted in 2008, found that about half of all South African patents that year were granted to US companies, followed by companies from the UK, Germany and France. The Department of Trade and Industry’s draft of the new intellectual property policy is set to be submitted to the cabinet on 5 December 2012. A three-month period of public comment on the policy will then be opened before the policy becomes a bill. MSF and TAC are calling on interested parties to get involved and ensure the policy protects public health by including provisions to prevent evergreening and to allow for compulsory licences, which allow generics to be manufactured for use in developing countries without the patent owner’s permission.