The culture of secrecy that surrounds agricultural land deals raises concerns about government misconduct in relation to issues of public interest, according to this article. There is a growing global consensus in favour of contract transparency and a few governments have started publishing contracts or improving legislation on transparency, with Liberia leading the way. After a review and renegotiation of all extractive industry concessions and contracts, President Sirleaf introduced the Liberia Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative Act (the LEITI Act), which requires all payments by individual companies and operating contracts and licenses to be published and reviewed on the LEITI website. This bold step has not deterred investors, as initially feared. Other countries are following suit. Ghana has also started publishing contracts in the oil sector, and Ethiopia has started making certain contracts public, the article notes. Some countries, including Sierra Leone, Ghana and Liberia, require large investment projects to be ratified in parliament, ensuring a layer of public scrutiny.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to record strong economic growth, despite the weaker global economic environment. Regional output rose by 5% in 2011, with growth set to increase slightly in 2012, helped by still-strong commodity prices, new resource exploitation, and the improved domestic conditions that have underpinned several years of solid trend growth in the region’s low-income countries. But there is variation in performance across the region, with output in middle-income countries tracking more closely the global slowdown and with some sub-regions adversely affected, at least temporarily, by drought. Threats to the outlook include the risk of intensified financial stresses in the euro area spilling over into a further slowing of the global economy and the possibility of an oil price surge triggered by rising geopolitical tensions.
This report investigates the external debts of both governments and the private sector in the global South. Analysing recently compiled data from international financial institutions, it finds that private sector debt payments out of impoverished countries are now double those of the public sector, a complete turnaround since the year 2000. What is of concern is the fact that similar high levels of private sector debt have been the main cause of the financial crisis in Europe. Across the 32 low- and lower middle-income countries where data is available, private sector external debt payments were found to have increased from 4% of export earnings in 2000 to 10% in 2010. In contrast, government external debt payments for these countries have fallen from 20% of export revenues in 1998 to 5% in 2010. The negative impacts of the financial crisis – including falling trade revenues, loss of money sent home from migrants and multinational companies sending more money back to the rich world – have seen lending to the 35 most impoverished country governments almost double from $5 billion in 2007 to $9 billion in 2009. As a result, government debt payments by impoverished countries are predicted to rise by a third by 2014. Although debt cancellation has released some countries from one debt trap, the Jubilee Debt Campaign argues that the developed country debt crisis has led to an increase in unregulated and opaque private lending, which could increase social inequality and the risk of further economic crisis. A new system for monitoring and regulating the way money moves across the world is needed, so that finance works for the benefit of everyone.
According to this report, Africa’s economic outlook is positive in some respects, as the continent is home to seven of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with 70% of Africa’s population living in countries that have averaged economic growth rates in excess of 4% over the past decade. However, the report also records that most countries are not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, flagging slow progress in areas such as child nutrition, child survival, maternal health, and education. The need for equitable growth is all the more critical, the report states, because of Africa’s profound demographic shift towards youth, as well as high levels of population growth. It calls for a greater focus by policymakers on jobs, justice and equity to ensure sustainable, shared growth that benefits all Africans. Failure to generate equitable growth could result in rising levels of youth unemployment, social dislocation and hunger. Africa’s governments and development partners must urgently draw up plans for a big push towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, the report says.
According to this booklet, media has a crucial role to play in shaping the intellectual property (IP) rights reform agenda in East Africa. As far as IP issues are concerned, CEHURD makes a number of recommendations. Media should aim to build their own capacity to understand IP issues, which tend to be technical and dynamic. It is important to understand the World Trade Organisation system and how it functions, as well as the ongoing negotiations, and to assess which position is in the best interest of Uganda and the region. The media should also follow ongoing policy and legislative processes and report and evaluate them at every stage. They should show support for progressive decisions by government actors in the negotiations, generate community support to promote social and economic change, and persuade the public and Parliament to demand that the president and Cabinet act in public and national interest. Media can further play a role in empowering ordinary citizens through civic education, information and mobilisation to participate more directly in the discussion and debate of ongoing IP reforms and their impact the different aspects of social life.
Health activists working in Kenya have welcomed the April 2012 decision by the Kenyan High Court, which ruled that that the country’s Anti-Counterfeit Act 2008 was ‘vague’ and could undermine access to affordable generic medicines. The ruling means that Parliament will now have to review the Act and amend sections that confuse generic medicines with counterfeits and remove ambiguities that may result in arbitrary seizures of generic medicines under the guise of fighting counterfeits. The organisations signing this joint statement have vowed to press for those changes to protect access to generic medicines. They hope this ruling will set a positive precedent for the East Africa region as other countries in the region are considering anti-counterfeiting laws that may threaten generics.
The High Court of Kenya has ruled that the country’s 2008 Anti-Counterfeit Act was too ‘broad’ and could interfere with the flow of legal generic medicines to patients. The landmark ruling stated that ‘the Act is vague and could undermine access to affordable generic medicines since the Act had failed to clearly distinguish between counterfeit and generic medicines.’ High Court Judge Mumbi Ngugi called on Kenya’s Parliament to review the Act and remove ambiguities that could result in arbitrary seizures of generic medicines under the pretext of fighting counterfeit drugs. She also said that intellectual property rights should not override the right to life and health. She specifically found that Section 2 (definition of counterfeiting), section 32 (offenses) and Section 34 (Powers of the Commissioner to seize suspected counterfeit Goods) could severely limit or threaten access to affordable and essential drugs including generic medicines for HIV and AIDS and therefore infringed the right to life, dignity and health of the three Petitioners (all people living with HIV/AIDS) under the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.
In this brief, the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) argues that anti-counterfeit measures are not an appropriate policy measure for curtailing the spread of substandard and falsified products, including medicines. The likely impact of the draft EAC Anti-Counterfeit Bill (2010) will be huge implementation costs through monitoring and settling international trade disputes. In addition, intellectual property rights (IPR) border controls and criminalising possession and trade in IPR infringing goods deters overall trade, in both IPR infringing goods and non-infringing goods. CEHURD notes that IPR-related “anticounterfeiting” action in the form of confiscated shipments of generic medicines reveals a pro-IPR bias and is being used to disrupt the flow of generics to developing countries instead of addressing more important issues of quality, safety and efficacy of generic medicines. The brief highlights the importance of distinguishing between generics, substandard medicines and counterfeit medicines. The TRIPS Agreement uses the term “counterfeit” only in the context of criminal trademark infringements that are wilful and on a commercial scale. CEHURD argues that there is a critical need to find legislative and policy approaches that would reduce the spread of such illicit, unregistered, and unsafe products without hindering access to good quality, safe and efficacious medicines - particularly legitimate and affordable generics of assured quality.
This article provides a local legal analysis of the ruling from the Kenyan High Court case in April 2012, where the judge found the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Act was unconstitutional in hindering access to generic medicines, thereby undermining public health needs and the right to health of all Kenyans. The judge recommended the State reconsider and appropriately amend section 2 of the Anti-Counterfeit Act in a manner that ensures that the State fulfils its obligations to ensure that Kenyans have access to the highest attainable standard of health. The author of this article questions the usefulness of the Anti-Counterfeit law, arguing that the existing legal framework in Kenya was sufficient for enforcing intellectual property rights. He asks why Kenyan taxpayers should be paying for the implementation of this law as well as for the costs of running the Anti-Counterfeit Agency.
Uganda’s 2009 Industrial Property Bill needs to be reviewed before it is enacted into law, according to this brief by the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD). The review is needed to make full and maximum use of the flexibilities available in the TRIPS Agreement in order to guarantee public health, particularly access to essential medicines, for all Ugandans. CEHURD argues that, since Uganda is classified as a less-developed country, it is free to exploit all the flexibilities the TRIPS Agreement offers, and is required to adopt only the minimum levels of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. The current bill contains unnecessary IPR protection over and above the minimum required by the TRIPS Agreement, and does not fully utilise flexibilities, CEHURD argues. A revised Industrial Property Act should promote Uganda’s public health interests by aiming to: develop the capacity at national level for production of generic medicines; allow the widest possible scope for parallel importation; adopt a simple and expeditious procedure for compulsory licensing and government use order; and allow extensive flexibility for scientific research and regulatory approval exceptions.