Members of the United Nations (UN) High Level Task Force on the Right to Development, which is reviewing different development initiatives using a set of criteria it developed, have said that ensuring the right to development should become more integral to debates over intellectual property (IP) policy. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda will play a crucial role in ensuring this integration if it happens, they added. It is ‘ironic that there is this gap between the fora that discuss intellectual property rights and [those that discuss] right to development. They follow an overlapping agenda in terms of substance,’ said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a member of the Task Force. ‘The core essence that levels of development need to be taken into account is still new to IP policy discussions,’ said Mohammed Gad, from the permanent mission of Egypt. WIPO should also pay more attention to its role as a UN agency, and therefore its responsibility to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said. In addition, WIPO should let the UN General Assembly, which is the guardian of the MDGs, know how the Development Agenda is progressing.
Values, Policies and Rights
To commemorate World No Tobacco Day on 31 May 2012, the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) announced plans to increase public awareness of the tobacco industry’s aggressive marketing tactics in South Africa. Over 44,000 people are estimated to die each year from tobacco-related diseases in the country, despite advertising restriction requirements in legislation. CANSA notes that tobacco companies are targeting women and young people to become smokers, as they represent a relatively untapped market for these companies. In the past, cigarettes were made freely available and promoted at exclusive parties and evidence has come to light of specific brands promoting cigarettes in a supermarket, as well as at a restaurant, as recently as November 2011, with beautiful women used to promote and distribute free cigarettes. CANSA notes that the Tobacco Control Act restricts tobacco advertising, including ‘viral’ marketing via social media like Facebook and Twitter, which is a favoured approach to target young people. The organisation highlights the need for this law to be leveraged to stop tobacco companies from marketing their harmful products to the public.
This article is an interview with Eveline Herfkens, executive coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, about the plight of Africa and the role of African governments in recreating poverty.She argues that too few governments in Africa have taken responsibility for themselves, for their future, and that donors have operated in a way that undermined accountability and responsibility, making African countries look more at what their donors want than what their own people want.
The United Nations (UN) Millennium Declaration and eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been hailed as a unique achievement in international development. Although the MDGs have raised the profile of global health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, progress has been uneven both between and within countries. A key reason suggested for this lack of progress is that the MDGs fall far short in terms of addressing the broader concept of development encapsulated in the Millennium Declaration, which includes human rights, equity, democracy, and governance. To strengthen the likelihood of realizing the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly with regard to “planet and population” health and well-being , UN and other decision-makers are urged to consider the adoption of an integrated SDG framework that is based on (i) a vision of global justice – underpinned by peace, security and basic human rights; (ii) the development of interdependent and interconnected strategies for each of the eleven thematic indicators identified in the UN document The World We Want; and (iii) the application of guiding principles to measure the impact of SDG strategies in terms of holism, equity, sustainability, ownership, and global obligation. While current discussions on the SDGs are making progress in a number of areas, the need for integration of these around a common global vision and purpose seems especially crucial to avoid MDG shortcomings.
A mixed-methods study was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the impacts of maternal death on families and children. The analysis identified gender as a fundamental driver not only of maternal, but also child health, through manifestations of gender inequity in household decision making, labour and caregiving, and social norms dictating the status of women. Focus group discussions were conducted with community members, and in depth qualitative interviews with key-informants and stakeholders, in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, and South Africa between April 2012 and October 2013. Findings highlighted that socially constructed gender roles, which define mothers as caregivers and fathers as wage earners, and which limit women's agency regarding childcare decisions, among other things, create considerable gaps when it comes to meeting child nutrition, education, and health care needs following a maternal death. Additionally, the findings show that maternal deaths have differential effects on boy and girl children, and exacerbate specific risks for girl children, including early marriage, early pregnancy, and school drop-out. The authors conclude that investment in health services interventions should be complemented by broader interventions regarding social protection, with a shifting of social norms and opportunity structures regarding gendered divisions of labour and power at household, community, and society levels.
Ensuring that all people can access the health services they need – without facing financial hardship – is key to improving the well-being of a country’s population. This report argues that universal health coverage (UHC) is more than that: it is an investment in human capital and a foundational driver of inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development. It is a way to support people so they can reach their full potential and fulfil their aspirations. However, the report indicates that despite some progress on UHC, at least half of the world’s population still cannot obtain essential health services. And each year, close to 100 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty because they must pay for health expenses out of their own pockets, pointing to the challenges in reaching the global goal of UHC by 2030.
Universal health coverage (UHC) means that all people receive the quality, essential health services they need, without being exposed to financial hardship. Moving towards UHC is a dynamic, continuous process that requires changes in response to shifting demographic, epidemiological and technological trends, as well as people’s expectations. But in all cases, countries need to integrate regular monitoring of progress towards targets into their plans. In May 2014, the World Health Organization and the World Bank jointly launched a monitoring framework for UHC, based on broad consultation of experts from around the world. The framework focuses on indicators and targets for service coverage – including promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliation – and financial protection for all. This report is the first of its kind to measure health service coverage and financial protection to assess countries’ progress towards universal health coverage. It shows that at least 400 million people do not have access to one or more essential health services and 6% of people in low- and middle-income countries are tipped into or pushed further into extreme poverty because of health spending.
Delaying sexual initiation has been promoted as one of the methods of decreasing risks of HIV among young people. In traditional countries, such as Ethiopia, retaining virginity until marriage is the norm. However, no one has examined the impact of this traditional norm on sexual behaviour and risk of HIV in marriage. This study examined the effect of virginity norm on having sex before marriage and sexual behaviour after marriage among rural Ethiopian youth. Maintaining virginity is still a way of securing marriage for girls, especially in rural areas; the odds of belief and intention to marry a virgin among boys was 3-4 times higher among rural young males. As age increased, the likelihood of remaining a virgin decreased. There was no significant difference between married and unmarried young people in terms of number of partners and visiting commercial sex workers. Married men were twice more likely to have multiple sexual partners than their female counterparts. Although virginity norms help delay age at sexual debut among rural Ethiopian youth, and thus reduces vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections and HIV infection, vulnerability among females may increase after marriage due to unprotected multiple risky sexual behaviours by spouses. The use of preventive services, such as VCT before marriage and condom use in marriage should be part of the HIV prevention and control strategies.
The aim of this paper is to examine young women's motivations to exchange sex for gifts or money, the way in which they negotiate transactional sex throughout their relationships, and the implications of these negotiations for the HIV epidemic. An ethnographic research design was used, with information collected primarily using participant observation and in-depth interviews in a rural community in North Western Tanzania. The qualitative approach was complemented by an assisted self-completion questionnaire. The study found that transactional sex underlay most non-marital relationships and was not, per se, perceived as immoral. However, women's motivations varied, for instance: escaping intense poverty, seeking beauty products or accumulating business capital. There was also strong pressure from peers to engage in transactional sex, in particular to consume like others and avoid ridicule for inadequate remuneration. Young women actively used their sexuality as an economic resource, often entering into relationships primarily for economic gain. In conclusion, transactional sex is likely to increase the risk of HIV by providing a dynamic for partner change, making more affluent, higher-risk men more desirable, and creating further barriers to condom use. Behavioural interventions should directly address how embedded transactional sex is in sexual culture.
Few empirical studies of research utilisation have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. This paper explores how research information, in particular findings from randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews, informed policy making and clinical guideline development for the use of magnesium sulphate in the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in South Africa. A qualitative case-study approach was used to examine the policy process, which included a literature review, a policy document review, a timeline of key events and the collection and analysis of 15 interviews with policy makers and academic clinicians The paper concludes that networks of researchers were important not only in using research information to shape policy but also in placing issues on the policy agenda. A policy context that creates a window of opportunity for new research-informed policy development is crucial.