This Working Paper was written by Tenu Avafia, a tralac researcher, and examines the potential impact of the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between SACU and the United States from the perspective of public health. Avafia examines the ongoing negotiations and expresses concerns about the possible impact of the FTA on public health in the SACU region, particularly, the impact that the proposed FTA is likely to have on the ability of SACU countries to source the most affordable essential medicines required to address urgent public health concerns. Avafia goes on to say that it would be imprudent to enter into a bilateral agreement that contains less favourable provisions on essential medicines than those found in the multilateral arena such as the Doha Declaration on TRIPs and Public Health and the WTO General Council Decision of 30 August 2003.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Migration to and from mines contributes to HIV risks and associated tuberculosis (TB) incidence. Health and safety conditions within mines also promote the risk of silicosis (a TB risk factor) and transmission of tuberculosis bacilli in close quarters. In the context of migration, current TB prevention and treatment strategies often fail to provide sufficient continuity of care to ensure appropriate TB detection and treatment. Reports from Lesotho and South Africa suggest that miners pose transmission risks to other household or community members as they travel home undetected or inadequately treated, particularly with drug-resistant forms of TB. Reducing risky exposures on the mines, enhancing the continuity of primary care services, and improving the enforcement of occupational health codes may mitigate the harmful association between mining activities and TB incidence among affected communities. A number of immediately available measures to improve continuity of care for miners, change recruitment and compensation practices, and reduce the primary risk of infection may help reduce South Africa’s TB burden.
In this article, the authors discuss the issue of how medicines may be eligible for patents and how this affects evergreening practices, whereby pharmaceutical companies extend the patent on their medicines by making slight modifications. However, evergreening of pharmaceutical patent protection, also includes patent monopolies over manufacturing processes, formulations, dosages, uses and methods of treatment. The authors present data that shows that evergreening patents have extended patent protection to nearly 50 years in some cases, well beyond the 20 year period provided in TRIPS. They argue that the net cost for society of evergreening patents is substantial and they have been proven to interfere and hinder fair competition in the pharmaceutical market, with the result that pharmaceutical companies can charge high monopoly prices for far longer than is justified. Because of its critical implications for competition and public health, India’s s.3(d) is becoming a model criteria for patent eligible subject matter in other countries. For instance, Brazil’s patent reform proposes to adopt such a provision. The invention threshold plays a critical role in the patent system. Setting the bar too low makes it easier for the patent system to be improperly exploited by those that use extended patent monopolies to extract economic rents. This behaviour should not be facilitated, the authors argue, as it unreasonably restricts society’s ability to benefit from the technology transfer trade-off.
By the end of the 1990s, significant portions of the African debt had been written off or re-scheduled. Today this problem is re-emerging due to several factors including the decline in commodity prices, growing class divisions and reliance on foreign direct investment. In 2015, Africa’s sovereign debt levels rose to 44 percent of GDP, a 10 percent rise from 2010. The author argues this follows patterns of previous years which problems arising from several factors including the decline in commodity prices, growing class divisions and reliance on foreign direct investment. This financial crisis emanates from Wall Street and other centres of borrowing throughout capitalist states. Within the leading industrialised countries of the West, there has still not been a full recovery from the economic crisis of 2007-2009. Unemployment remains high and consumer spending is low due to the loss of wages and household wealth. Consequently, the availability of credit to African states will be far more limited during the second decade of the 21st century than what prevailed in the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. The continuing dependency on the neo-colonial system will serve as an impediment to not only national but regional and continental integration and economic planning. The author argues that these issues require more of a political response rather than economic and that genuine political independence and sovereignty of African states must lead to the rejection of the conditions established by the IMF and World Bank.
An internal IMF report admitting the destructive nature of neoliberalism may have come too late for many African countries. The neoliberal structural adjustment programs have led to economic hardships, political instability and conflicts in most African countries where they have been implemented. The report makes three devastating conclusions: One, that the neoliberal reform program has not delivered increased economic growth. Secondly, neoliberal reforms have increased inequality. And thirdly, the increased inequality caused by neoliberal reforms has in turn undermined the level and sustainability of economic growth. The report states that the removal of barriers to capital flows, or financial openness, has often resulted in short-term speculative, so-called “hot” inflows, in developing countries. However, such speculative capital inflows to African countries are often quickly withdrawn by industrial country investors as they seek better returns elsewhere, destabilising African economies which were initial recipients of such “hot” inflows. Such speculative inflows neither boost growth nor allow the African country to share the costs of such destabilisation with the industrial countries from which speculators originate. The authors conclude that there was an increased “acceptance of controls to limit short-term debt flows that are viewed as likely to lead to – or compound – a financial crisis”. They argue that while exchange rates and financial policies could help to alleviate risks of increased financial instability, “capital controls are a viable, and sometimes the only, option when the source of an unsustainable credit boom is direct borrowing from abroad”. The report says that although high public debt is detrimental to growth and welfare, it would be better for African and developing countries to pay off their public debt over a longer time, rather than cut current productive spending needs. To lower public debt, proponents of neoliberal reforms have proposed that taxes should be raised or public spending cut, or both. If African countries do not come up with quality policies, or if they have them, but the policies are captured by corrupt elements, or half-heartedly implemented, or not implemented at all, they won’t be able to take advantage of the seeming retreat of the four-decade long globally dominant “neoliberalism”.
Few people are aware how much national and regional food systems are impacted by international policies and trade rules is on national and regional food systems—this report makes these links and offers alternative responses. It also addresses agriculture and global warming, how to move organic and local food models forward, and discusses other emerging issues as well. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is a research and educational institution comprised of leading scholars, economists, researchers, and activists from around the globe.
This article discusses African countries and the second generation of ‘emerging market’ countries. Eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been deemed to meet the ‘emerging market’ criteria by the International Finance Corporation: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The rise of some African countries to emerging market status gives them great economic opportunity. The article looks at ways to determine a countries growth prospects, depending on whether a country is resource-rich or resource-scarce.
The objective of this study was to explore the possibility of asbestos exposure during the process of diamond mining. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis were used to identify asbestos fibres in the lungs of diamond mine workers who had an autopsy for compensation purposes and in the tailings and soils from three South African diamond mines located close to asbestos deposits. Tremolite-actinolite asbestos fibres were identified in the lungs of five men working on diamond mines. Tremolite-actinolite and/or chrysotile asbestos were present in the mine tailings of all three mines. Mesothelioma, asbestosis, and/or pleural plaques were diagnosed in six diamond mine workers at autopsy. The authors conclude that these findings indicate that diamond mine workers are at risk of asbestos exposure and, thus, of developing asbestos-related diseases. Even at low concentrations, asbestos has the potential to cause disease, and mining companies should be aware of the health risk of accidentally mining it. Recording of comprehensive work histories should be mandatory to enable the risk to be quantified in future studies, the authors argue.
Africa is fast becoming the go-to continent for countries wanting access to the vast and rich resources. But can the continent harness its potential, negotiate effectively and have the confidence to take charge of its own future, without allowing global financial giants to ride rough-shod over it? This article discusses the current state of investment into the region, the influence of China and America and the implications for Africans.
In this report, the authors provide an in-depth evaluation of debt cancellation measures the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that took place at the beginning of the 21st century. As a proxy for the effect of debt relief, the authors of this report looked into the education sector for evidence of improvements following the debt cancellation. Some positive changes, notably in the payment of wages, were found that correlated with the debt relief, but these changes did not reach further than the headquarters of the ministry of education in Kinshasa. They identified two new issues: the growing need to question the legitimacy of ‘odious debt’ incurred during a dictatorship without the population ever having received any benefits from it; and the ongoing fight against vulture funds and other rogue creditors, which buy up the debt of poor developing countries at very low prices and then sue them to enforce payment of the nominal value, including arrears of interest. Legislation outlawing the seizure of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) funds and state-to-state loans would be an important step in that direction, the authors argue. Belgium has already passed a law to protect its ODA grants against seizure and also intends to audit the ethical basis of all sovereign credits on developing countries. (Please note that this report has only been issued in French – the English version is forthcoming.)