This paper forms part of a series of eight briefings on the European Union’s approach to Free Trade Agreements. It aims to explain EU policies, procedures and practices to those interested in supporting developing countries. It is not intended to endorse any particular policy or position, rather to inform decisions and provide the means to better defend them. The views expressed in the briefings do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The EU’s approach to Free Trade Agreements: Intellectual Property
ActionAid International, Christian Aid, Oxfam International: EU FTA manual, Briefing 8
The future of cities according to women : Interview with Thozama Mputa, Michelle Mlati and Counterspace
Interview with Thozama Mputa, Michelle Mlati and Counterspace: Future Cape Town, 9 August 2017
In April and May 2017, the Constructing Future Cities project supported by the British Council engaged with 5 women artists on the topic of future cities. Mputa identified the fact that women do not feel safe and are not safe in cities as something that needs to be addressed. Sputa noted that one would experience a space differently if one had an opportunity to contribute and to be informed during the design process. One would take pride in the space, be able to use the space effectively and educate others on spaces in the city. Her vision of a future city; a city that acknowledges its past, celebrates the present and plans for change, an inclusive city designed by its inhabitants and explored by its visitors. Her artwork makes use of hatching to illustrate and merge faces, landscapes and cityscapes. Creating rhythm and pattern emphasised by the use of colour. Mlati identified a need to expand thinking about energy sources, moving beyond solar panels as infrastructure towards thinking of an intersection of art, architecture and energy. Mlati notes that those whose experiences of the city have flourished despite alienation hold clues from future urban practice.
The G20 summit and Africa
Nabudere D: Pambazuka News 2 April 2009
The author argues for a new financial system that is transparent and accountable to all. The G20's task is to expose all that has gone wrong, including the role the African leaders have played in the crisis, through the externalisation of billions of pounds intended for the development of their countries. These activities, Nabudere notes, have helped position Africa as a net creditor to the world, with the external assets of 40 African countries outstripping their external liabilities over the period from 1970–2004. In other words, he says, despite the widely held view that Africa was 'decoupled' from the global economy, African leaders have contributed to the activities of ‘shadow banks’ being used to create ‘toxic debt’, their wealth contributing to the global economic turmoil.
The GATS and South Africa's National Health Act
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
This new study shows how South Africa's flagship health legislation conflicts with binding commitments the former apartheid regime negotiated under the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This trade treaty conflict threatens to undermine the much-needed legislation and, if left unresolved, would make meeting the health needs of the majority of the population far more difficult. The study explores several options that South Africa has for resolving this conflict in favour of its health policy imperatives, but each entails risk. South Africa's dilemma should serve as a world-wide warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be far more attentive to negotiations that are now underway in Geneva to expand the reach of the GATS.
The GATS and South Africa’s National Health Act: A cautionary tale
Sinclair S: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Papers 11, June 2006
This research shows not only how GATS conflicts with the National Health Act, but also how General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) threatens national sovereignty and impedes the achievement of our constitution’s socio-economic rights. South African trade officials have repeatedly denied that GATS covers South African health services, but this study reveals that it covers almost all health services delivered outside of hospitals. South Africa’s dilemma should serve as a warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be more attentive to GATS negotiations currently underway in Geneva. Instead of the current negotiations to broaden and deepen GATS coverage, there needs to be an assessment of the treaty’s defects and joint international action to create more democratic international governance frameworks.
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and poor people's right to water
Natural Resources Forum, Volume 29 Issue 2 Page 154, May 2005
"The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) seeks to expand international trade in a wide range of services ranging from tourism to telecommunications and education. In recent years, it has come under attack from civil society organizations in both the North and the South for having a detrimental impact on poor people's right to basic services. This article explores some of these controversies, using the example of water services. It focuses specifically on the impact of the GATS on poor people's right to water and national governments' ability to safeguard the interests of poor people through regulation."
The General Agreement On Trade In Services: Implications For Health Policymakers
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), created under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, aims to regulate measures affecting international trade in services - including health services such as health insurance, hospital services, telemedicine, and acquisition of medical treatment abroad. The agreement has been the subject of great controversy, for it may affect the freedom with which countries can change the shape of their domestic health care systems. This article explains the rationale behind the agreement and discusses its scope. It also addresses the major controversies surrounding the GATS and their implications for the U.S. health care system.
The global capitalist crisis and Africa’s future: Part I
Nabudere DW: Pambazuka News (497), 23 September 2010
This article argues that Africa today is trailing the rest of the world because, in part, the African leadership has failed to mobilise its people along the lines of a Pan-African agenda that informed the earlier phases of our political development. This is due to its weak ideological base, which, instead of drawing from such a heritage, is wedded to Western ways of knowing and doing things which we have derived from their educational institutions without questioning, including Christian and Muslim religious influences. While these external interventions have added to Africa’s modern culture, the article argues, they have also left a negative impact on African intellectual capacity to think independently unlike, say, the Asian intellectuals and political leaders who have links to their religions and cultures. This is due to the fact that Asia, unlike Africa, was less destabilised by way of religious intrusions, resulting in its intellectual and political leadership remaining more anchored to their religions, languages and cultures.
The Global Commission on the Future of Work calls for fundamental changes in health at work
Osseiran N: World Health Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2019
The ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work called for fundamental changes in the way people work in the wave of globalisation, rapid technological development, demographic transition and climate change, according to its report Work for a Brighter Future published in January 2019. The report examines how to achieve a better future of work for all at a time of unprecedented change and exceptional challenges in the world of work. These changes require placing health higher on the agenda of the world of work. Everybody has the right to health, which is defined by WHO as a state of complete physical and mental wellbeing and not only the absence of disease and infirmity. Working people have the right to health and to health care as close as possible to where they live and work. In 2018, WHO and ILO established a global coalition on occupational safety and health as multi-partner initiative of international and national agencies to create common solutions for the challenges for health and safety at work and to stimulate joint actions by health and labour sectors in countries. WHO welcomed the attention given by the Global Commission on the care economy and healthcare is a major part of it. WHO is also working with ILO and OECD to implement a five-year ‘Working for Health’ global action plan to create new and decent job opportunities in health care, to ensure the necessary workforce for universal health coverage and at the same time for stimulating economic growth.
The global financial crisis and access to health care in Africa
Mensah J: Africa Today 60(3), 2014
Just when health care financing in Africa is expected to pick up due to perceptible improvements in many economies, including those of Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Angola, the global financial crisis gathers momentum for contagion. This paper examines how the financial crisis is undermining access to health care in Africa, and offers some suggestions to help improve the situation. The paper sees access as a multifaceted concept, imbued with various social, economic, and geographic characteristics. The study found that the revenue constrictions wrought by the ongoing financial crises (e.g., through reductions in donor funding, tourist bookings, and remittance to Africa) have affected the supply of health care services, put pressure on personal finances, and compelled many households to reduce their demand for formal health care services.