Health equity in economic and trade policies

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.

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.

The world’s financial and economic crisis has taken a toll on children and poor households. High food and commodity prices, unemployment and austerity measures have aggravated persistent inequalities and contributed to a substantial rise in hunger and social tensions. Now, more than ever, investments for the world’s poor are needed to recover lost ground in pursuit of development objectives. People everywhere are demanding change. This book describes the social impacts of the crisis, policy responses to date and United Nations alternative proposals for ‘A Recovery for All.' The book guides us through the effects of the multiple crises on the poor, but it also demonstrates convincingly that the fiscal space for a basic floor of social protection that would provide effective protection from the worst social fall-out of such crises can be found. The book reminds that fiscal space is not a question of economic performance or state of development, it is first and foremost a question of political will. It is the lack of political will, i.e., cruel indifference vis-à-vis avoidable ill health, hunger, destitution and deaths, that prevents us from reducing vulnerability of those who have no means to fend for themselves.

While bilateral investment treaties (BITs) can make a positive contribution to sustainable development, the benefits to host countries are not automatic, according to this speech by South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies. He says BITs pose risks and limitations on the ability of the Government to pursue its Constitutional-based transformation agenda. As a result, Cabinet has concluded that South Africa should refrain from entering into BITs in future, except in cases of compelling economic and political circumstances. Cabinet also seeks to incorporate legitimate exceptions to investor protection where warranted by public policy considerations such as, for example for national security, health, environmental reasons or for measures to address historical injustice and or promote development. South Africa’s updated approach would aim to achieve an appropriate balance between the rights and obligations of investors, the need to provide adequate protection to foreign investors, while ensuring that constitutional obligations are upheld, and that government retains the policy space to regulate in the public interest.