Low-carbon transport measures can provide ‘win-win’ options for developed and developing countries that benefit health as well as reducing climate change, suggests this new report by the World Health Organisation, launched at COP17 in Durban, South Africa on 6 December 2011. Among the measures are better systems for rapid transit, walking and cycling, as well as urban land use that emphasises greater ‘access’ to key destinations by these modes. These strategies all can help to: promote physical activity, which can prevent heart disease some cancers and type 2 diabetes; reduce health-harming air pollution exposures; and reduce injury risks when cycle/pedestrian networks are made safer.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: Transport sector
World Health Organisation: December 2011
Health in an Age of Globalization
Disease has travelled with goods and people since the earliest times. Armed globalization spread disease, to the extent of eliminating entire populations. The geography of disease shaped patterns of colonization and industrialization throughout the now poor world. Many see related threats to public health from current globalization. Multilateral and bilateral trade agreements do not always adequately represent the interests of poor countries, the General Agreement on Trade in Services may restrict the freedom of signatories to shape their own health delivery systems, and it remains unclear whether current arrangements for intellectual property rights are in the interests of citizens of poor countries with HIV/AIDS.
Health, Wealth and Welfare
Finance & Development - Quarterly magazine of the IMF
The authors explore the economics of health and development, arguing that new evidence coupled with a wider perspective suggest sizable economic returns to better health. Drawing on studies of human welfare, they say that past estimates of economic progress have been understated and that recent economic losses caused by HIV/AIDS are likewise being understated if economists rely on GDP per capita as a yardstick. A better indicator is "full income"- an assessment of economic welfare that captures both the value of changes in life expectancy and income as measured in national accounts. For Africa, they say, this new yardstick "signals catastrophe ahead".
Hear our voices: How climate change is hurting Africa
IRIN News, 22 November 2006
The United Nations global climate change conference in Nairobi agreed that African countries remain the most vulnerable to climate change, whose effects are manifested in extreme weather conditions, ranging from prolonged drought to massive flooding. These changes have consequences for food production and for the spread of infectious diseases.
High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation highlights need for South-South partnerships
United Nations: 6 December 2009
The High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, which was held from 1–3 December in Nairobi, Kenya, encouraged developing countries – with support from developed countries and international organisations – to take concrete steps to make their cooperative efforts work better in tackling the serious challenges they faced in achieving socio-economic advancement. The conference highlighted the growing political and economic ties within the developing world as countries of the global South assumed leading roles in handling global issues ranging from economic recovery to food security and climate change. By adopting the final text of the Conference – known formally as the Nairobi Outcome Document – the participants recognised the increasing power of South-South cooperation over the past few decades. The document urges United Nations funds, programmes and specialised agencies to take concrete measures to support South-South cooperation.
Highlights of the first tobacco treaty conference of the parties
WHO
On February 17th, 2006, the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva adopted 4 major decisions, including:
* establishing the permanent secretariat of the Treaty within the World Health Organization (located in Geneva);
* creating working groups that will begin development of protocols (legally binding instruments) in the areas of cross-border advertising and illicit trade;
* allowing the Conference of the Parties to assess progress made by countries in implementing the measures required by the Treaty; and establishing an ad-hoc group of experts that will study economically viable alternatives to tobacco growing and production.
HIPC sunset clause - Haven't we been there before?
The World Bank and IMF have produced a paper entitled "Enhanced HIPC Initiative - Possible Options Regarding the Sunset Clause", dealing with the sunset clause of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). The paper provides a brief background to the sunset clause and discusses the implications of its expiry at the end of the year before going on to discuss four possible policy options and concluding remarks. Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development, comments that any extension would: "...embarrassingly for the WB and IMF, represent the fourth extension to the initiative. We argue that this demonstrates the severe technical shortcomings (and therefore credibility) of the initiative."
HIV generics under threat from tighter patenting rules
Plus News: 2 August 2010
Most of the estimated 5.2 million people worldwide on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment are taking generic versions manufactured primarily in India, but tighter global intellectual property rights and trade rules could shut down this trade. While the patents on many older, first-line ARVs have expired, leaving generic manufacturers free to produce them, newer, less toxic and more effective drugs are patented and priced out of reach of less developed nations. The main way generics manufacturers can produce newer drugs is to obtain a ‘voluntary licence’ from the patent holder. This usually sets quality requirements and defines the markets in which the licensee can sell the product. For example, pharmaceutical giant Gilead has allowed the South African firm, Aspen Pharmacare, to manufacture and distribute branded and generic versions of tenofovir, one of the newer first-line ARV drugs. However, civil society activists say voluntary licences skew the balance of power too far in favour of patent-holders and present a way to control generic competition by creating dependency on the innovator companies, according to this article. The United States and the European Union have been accused of pressuring developing countries by using trade threats to coerce these countries into adopting intellectual property laws that will increase the cost of medicines. By jeopardising generics, especially those from India, this article argues that they are effectively putting millions of lives at risk.
HIV/AIDS Civic Society Organisations and movements working on access address WHO DG
5 February 2007
This letter represents people living with HIV/AIDS and their advocates around the world who are fighting for access to affordable treatment for HIV, writing to request that the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) reconsider her comments regarding the Thai government’s decision to issue a compulsory license for the production or importation of three drugs, two for treating HIV/AIDS. They state that she has been entrusted, in your position as director general of WHO, to work for “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”, and their belief that her comments last week do not reflect this mission, and in fact work against it.
Further details: /newsletter/id/32109
Honest Accounts 2017: How the world profits from Africa’s wealth
Curtis M; Jones T: Curtis Research, Jubilee Debt Campaign and others, 2017
This report presents the movement of all the main financial resources into and out of Africa, mainly using 2012 figures. It found that $134 billion entered the continent in 2017, mainly in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid. However, some $192 billion was taken out, mainly in profits made by foreign companies, tax dodging and the costs of adapting to climate change. Africa was found to suffer a net deficit of $58 billion a year. This is reported to have has led to reductions in government holdings of international reserves and lower (but still significant) multinational company profits taken out of the continent. They report that there are now more loans to African governments, another in inflow, although this comes at the cost of future debt payments and possibly debt crises.