Roughly a decade on from the launch of a new era of commercial and strategic alignment, China-Africa ties continue to mature, substantially altering the make-up of Africa’s political and economic milieu, according to this paper. The authors evaluate the current and potential scale of China’s position in Africa, and, in so doing, pose questions as to the role of Africa’s traditional Western partners in the continent’s ongoing economic progression. Bilateral trade in 2011 reached US$160 bn, up by 28% from the previous year, when China accounted for 18% of Africa’s trade (up from 10% in 2008). African exports to China increased by one-third in 2011, while Africa’s imports from China (23.7%) increased by 4%. Fluctuations in currency and domestic prices have little explanatory role in why China has undermined the position of developed nations in Africa, the authors argue. What counts is China’s foresighted engagement with Africa back at the start of the past decade, allowing Beijing to steal a march on Africa’s other partnerships. Importantly, China is well-positioned to be a significant player in Africa’s next phase of development.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The European Union (EU) has committed to concluding a new free trade agreement (FTA) with India, known formally as the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BITA), by the end of 2012, but the BITA may have significant adverse implications for India’s generic pharmaceutical industry that supplies much of the developing world’s antiretroviral (ARV) medications and other drugs. Critics argue that free trade agreements that may create new intellectual property obligations for India can increase ARV prices, impede the development of acceptable dosage forms, and delay access to new and better ARVs. They also state that by pressuring India and other developing countries to accept new intellectual property rules for pharmaceuticals, the EU threatens to undermine the Doha Declaration, a TRIPS-related agreement that is intended to ensure that low- and middle-income countries gain access to affordable medicines. The schedule for the next round of BITA negotiations in September 2012 has yet to be released and preparations are shrouded in secrecy. Neither party has sufficiently acknowledged the impact the FTA may have on millions of the world’s poorest people, who rely on India’s generic pharmaceutical industry to provide them with access to life-saving treatments.
In this declaration from the fourth annual BRICS summit, held in March 2012, participants call for a more representative international financial architecture, with an increase in the voice and representation of developing countries and the establishment and improvement of a just international monetary system that can serve the interests of all countries and support the development of emerging economies. The declaration expresses BRICS’s concern at the slow pace of quota and governance reforms in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), calling for greater representation of developing countries by January 2013. The declaration reiterates BRICS’ position that that the heads of the IMF and the World Bank be selected through an open and merit-based process, and that Bank leadership must commit to transform the Bank into a multilateral institution that truly reflects the vision of all its members. The declaration also announces BRICS’s intention to set up a new Development Bank for mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other developing countries.
In a move welcomed by many in the international community, India has granted its first compulsory licence to a local generic drug maker to manufacture and sell a cancer drug, Sorafenib tosylate, which is patented by German pharmaceutical giant, Bayer, under the brand name Nexavar. Compulsory licensing is one of the flexibilities on patent protection under the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, and it allows developing countries to manufacture affordable generic versions of patented medicines needed for public health in developing countries. Natco, the Indian generic producer, has already developed a process to manufacture the drug, expected to be ready for marketing in April 2011. It is anticipated that Bayer will make an appeal against the decision, which requires Natco to pay a quarterly royalty at 6% of the net sales of the drug, far below Bayer’s asking royalty of 15%. Médecins Sans Frontières said the ruling has ended Bayer’s monopoly in India on the drug and could set a precedent for making more expensive patented drugs available for compulsory licensing.
In this update to Medicins Sans Frontieres’ (MSF) November 2010 report on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) - which has so far been signed by most developed nations - the impact of ACTA on access to medicines is investigated. Although a number of provisions that were harmful to access to medicines in developing countries were removed during the negotiations, the final text remains problematic, according to MSF. The agreement, for example, will undermine the ability of developing country governments to apply the Doha Declaration to protect public health. It puts medical distributors, non-governmental organisations and public health authorities at risk of severe penalties, while allowing for continued border detention of in-transit medicines destined for developing countries. ACTA undermines the role of the judiciary in protecting the right to health and balance private intellectual property rights with the larger public interest, and acts as a deterrent to the production and trade in generic medicines, as it provides for excessive punishment, shifts the risks entirely on to the generic manufacturer, and grants few protections against abuse. MSF states that it does not recognise the legitimacy of ACTA because it has been negotiated in secret with little room for public engagement. The authors conclud that ACTA is a cynical exploitation of concerns around unsafe medicines and is not a legitimate response to the problem of counterfeiting.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death globally, killing more people each year than all other causes combined. Furthermore, behavioural risk factors for NCDs fall increasingly on poorer people within all countries, mirroring the underlying socio-economic determinants. The need for prevention efforts through well-planned, cost-effective and feasible interventions across all levels of society is therefore obvious, the authors of this paper argue. The workplace is argued to provide an important setting for ecological models that ensure the both the policies and the environments that enable health.
China has asserted that its aid to Africa has no strings attached. The author of this article argues that in contrast China's activities in Africa, like those of other major external funders have conditionalities attached. There is an oft-repeated Western view that China's only interest in Africa is to extract its natural resources. However in Mozambique China's investments are more targetted at the industrial sector, and there are numerous infrastructure and development projects across the continent attesting to the effectiveness of Chinese investment. The author notes that African governments would be foolish to believe that their relationship with China will avoid all the political wrangling inherent in aid and trade relationships. He warns that rather than casting aspersions on China's role in Africa. Western governments should acknowledge their own mixed record in African relations, and build a more balanced analysis of the costs and benefits of China's growing engagement in international development.
According to this article, Africa has much to gain from China’s growing presence on the continent, though it is not without some negative impacts. Increased trade and investment links are particularly promising, as they have the potential to support poverty alleviation and sustain recent economic gains. However, African countries must exercise their bargaining power more effectively to ensure that they benefit from the growing relationship, including in areas such as modern technology transfer. It is also the continent’s responsibility to make sure that, as it takes advantage of Chinese investments, competition is preserved and encouraged and regulatory frameworks are improved, including mining codes, by increasing transparency and accountability of contracts. In addition, large flows of Chinese investment and aid should not be allowed to delay much-needed domestic reforms, such as strengthening economic management and improving the business environment. These are needed to attract foreign direct investment from Western countries, which in turn would help to counterbalance potential overdependence on China’s investment. Africa does not have to choose between the West and China – it can have both.
A growing concern among those interested in economic development is the realisation that hundreds of billions of dollars are illicitly flowing out of developing countries to tax havens and other financial centres in the developed world. This new book by the World Bank assesses the dynamics of these flows, much of which is from corruption and tax evasion. What causes them, what are their consequences and how might they be controlled? The chapters by authors from a variety of backgrounds, including criminologists and practicing lawyers as well as economists, examine many dimensions of the phenomenon. Some chapters examine major illegal markets (drug trafficking and human smuggling) to assess how they contribute to these flows, while others are concerned with the corporate role in the phenomenon, particularly the possibility that transfer pricing (in which firms set prices for international trade among wholly owned affiliates) might play a major role in moving money illicitly.
In this UNRISD paper, the author reviews research on the employment impacts of neoliberalism, specifically on women’s employment. She considers a number of aspects that are central to employment issues: the slowdown in economic growth and the decline in the responsiveness of employment to growth; the impact of trade and investment liberalisation, informalisation and inflation targeting on employment; the consequences of increasingly frequent economic crises; and the public sector. The author contends that the Washington consensus’ macroeconomic policy conventions – liberalisation, privatisation and macro stability – have become so globally entrenched that they are rarely questioned by the academic and policy establishment. To this effect, she points to numerous, wide gaps in research into the employment impacts of neoliberal macroeconomic development policy.