The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Council and the ACP-EU (European Union) Council of Ministers met from 17-22 June to sign the revised ACP-EU Partnership Agreement. Aimed at eradicating poverty and supporting sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP states into the world economy, the agreement was finalised in 2000 and is reviewed every five years. The 2010 amendments seek to improve EU policy coherence for development, the promotion of domestic resource mobilisation, an d the role of non-state actors in cooperation. Cooperation and political dialogue is also enhanced to address the Millennium Development Goals, climate change, food security, state fragility, HIV and AIDs, organised crime and aid for trade. The revision further contains enhanced regional integration provisions and makes the African Union a partner to the agreement. The parties also adopted joint statements on the Millennium Development Goals and on climate change which should strengthen their position in the upcoming international negotiations on these issues. The ACP Council adopted unilateral declarations asking the EU to revisit its position on contentious issues in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations and on trade arrangements in bananas, sugar and cotton.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Samir Amin is one of Africa's foremost radical thinkers. In this interview organised by African Research and Cooperation for Endogenous Development Support, Amin reflects on a life spent at the cutting edge of radical theory and practice and African politics. Amin questions what social progressive change means today. He argues that there needs to be a strengthening of socialist consciousness - instead of ‘moving up’ within capitalism, people need to orientate in the opposite direction, and intensify the contradictions between an anti-capitalist alternative and what capitalism can offer. He argues against the concept of a single ‘revolution’, preferring instead to talk about advances and changes which create the possibility of later, further advances. He also rejects the view that it is possible to produce change without political and state power. Amin notes that all the peoples of Africa are today facing a big challenge. African societies are integrated in a form of globalisation that is damaging for the continent. He argues that Africans must 'delink’ from it and reject the logic of unilateral adjustment to the needs of further capitalist and imperialist expansion, starting at national level.
This article reports an interview with Professor Thandika Mkandawire, a leading development economist of Malawian origin specializing in the comparative study of Africa. The interview explores how growing up under colonialism in Zimbabwe meant that huge decisions were being made that had profound effect on one's life, that he saw in the experience of his father as a unionised worker on a mine and a tailor at home. He recounts the conversations on politics and working conditions on the mines that took place while people waited for their garments, as people tried to make sense of policies they had no contribution to. As a school student in Malawi doing is 'O levels' at a time of anti-colonial struggles, he was involved in demonstrations that exposed the brutality of the police. After school and working on a weekly paper his experience of being arrested exposed the facade of rule of law in a trial that he called a farce. His study of economics was initially to be a better journalist. Studying in Latin America he saw the hostility of Latin Americans to the USA as a 'more naked' form of the 'new imperialist order'. The interview traces him to his life in exile from Malawi, living in Sweden, where the thinking of Amartya Sen and others exposed the deeply social and political nature of economics, while the writing of African nationalists exposed the tension between class and nation as the overriding concern, a debate he posits as continuing until today. Living in Sweden at that time provided an experience of a democratic state that could "tame the structural power of capital", reinforcing but also moderating his "leftist inclinations". The interview continues to track how his life experiences and work at institutions such as CODESRIA and UNRISD influenced his thinking on developmental states, his views on strategic responses to the structural adjustment programmes in Africa, of the role of intelligent, capable and democratic states as the only viable instrument for development, and of social investment as a developmental tool. The interview explores his views on the implications for the current African political economy and for African scholarship.
From the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) "The Future We Want", the conference outcome document, agreed upon by member states attending the 20-22 June conference, highlights the fact that better health is a “precondition for, an outcome of, and an indicator of all three dimensions of sustainable development”. The outcome document emphasizes the importance of universal health coverage to enhancing health, social cohesion and sustainable human and economic development. It acknowledges that the global burden and threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) constitutes one of the major sustainable development challenges of the 21st century. The document states: “We are convinced that action on the social and environmental determinants of health, both for the poor and the vulnerable and the entire population, is important to create inclusive, equitable, economically productive and healthy societies. We call for the full realization of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.
This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the "Doha Declaration" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. The paper states that the U.S. is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the "Doha Declaration" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. The paper states that the U.S. is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
The round table on ‘Conceptual and Operational Issues of Lender Responsibility for Sovereign Debt’ was hosted by the World Bank following the publication of a draft World Bank discussion paper entitled ‘Odious debt: Some considerations’ in September 2007. The event was organised in response to a request by a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) interested in discussing the findings of the bank’s paper and the broader issues of odious/illegitimate debt and responsible lending. This outcome report captures some of the main points raised by panellists as well as the discussions with the meeting’s participants which followed, namely, the concepts of odious and illegitimate debt, whether or not these can be considered well-established legal concepts, consideration of how feasibly these concepts could be applied in practice and practical approaches to addressing concerns on responsible lending and borrowing in the future. As follow-up some civil society organisations suggested that, if the World Bank was indeed serious about the importance of the odious debt issue, it should foster further discussions on the subject with legal experts to discuss different approaches to dealing with the problem. It was also proposed that the World Bank and a Southern CSO jointly appoint an independent auditor to examine selected credit according to mutually agreed indicators. Finally, CSOs called for the World Bank discussion paper and roundtable outcome report to be discussed by the bank’s management and Board.
Agriculture has the potential not only to feed all of Africa’s people but also to earn the continent revenues for development. There are numerous practical ways in which this can be achieved. the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is a programme of African Union, which was endorsed in Maputo in 2003 with the aim of improving and promoting agriculture across Africa calls for countries to allocate 10% of their national income to agricultural development. Most countries have poor storage facilities and transportation systems which have led to post-harvest losses in both grains and vegetables. Maize has been affected by aflatoxin. There has been persistent price fluctuation of agricultural products which makes it almost impossible to plan for the earnings. The foreign income is minimal since most countries engage in primary exports, where the market is saturated. The author indicates that it is time Africa embraced the concept of value addition, exporting finished products will give an upper hand in the global market. Enhancing tariff barriers will make imports expensive boosting the demand for local products.
This article provides a detailed analysis of the Rwanda-Canada use of the system created under the August 2003 Decision for the import/export of pharmaceutical products manufactured under compulsory license. It will describe the various procedures that the importing country, the generic pharmaceutical company and the exporting country have to go through, identifying lessons from the experience. The precedent that may be established is critical to the continued utility and functionality of the system under the August 2003 Decision.
Rwanda plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada, making it the first country to test a WTO waiver on drug patents. In a submission to the WTO, the country said it expects over the next two years to buy 260,000 packs of TriAvir, a fixed-dose combination of widely used anti-AIDS drugs lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine. The generic product is manufactured in Canada by Apotex Inc. This essentially means Rwanda has invoked a never-before-used August 2003 waiver to WTO's intellectual property rules, meant to allow poor countries with public health problems to import generics when they cannot manufacture the drugs themselves.