The major objectives of this paper are to analyse the inter-relationship among economic growth, inequality and poverty and to propose a typology of countries within sub-Saharan Africa based on the different initial conditions they face and that can be used to derive appropriate development strategies. In particular, an attempt is made at deriving distinct strategies that embrace growth patterns that are likely to reduce poverty in each separate group of countries. The choice of the most appropriate development strategy is clearly context-specific and, ultimately, has to be shaped at the individual country level. Yet, the advantage of a typology is to highlight and emphasises the importance of those key and distinct conditions and features that influence the development paths of different categories of countries sharing relatively similar conditions. In order to understand better the anatomy of the development process, the changing structure of growth throughout this process has to be explored. In a continent where most countries are still at an early development stage and where the majority of the people reside in rural areas and are employed in agriculture, understanding the structural transformation process and the role of agriculture as a potential engine of growth is of fundamental importance.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Patrick Bond addresses questions raised by Yash Tandon in regards to the role of the BRICS in Africa and in the current configuration of the neoliberal international capitalist order. The challenge is for critics of BRICS to strategise with the world’s progressive forces to build a genuine anti-imperialist movement.
The tobacco industry has for a long time affected innocent lives world over through several ways including; advertising and encouraging direct smoking of cigarettes, secondhand smoke exposure, smoking of other combustible tobacco products , smokeless tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) among others. The WHO report on Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008, confirms that the global tobacco epidemic is one of the greatest public health threats of modern times as smoking causes so many deleterious health effects. Some of these health effects include; diminished health status, susceptibility to acute illnesses and respiratory symptoms, death, coronary heart disease, cancers of any organ of the body, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, pre-mature births, among others. Uganda has taken a great leap in tobacco control interventions through ratification of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and consequently the enactment of the Tobacco Control Act of 2016.
The Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) Results Framework is an essential component in facilitating CAADP implementation. The AU Malabo Declaration in June 2014 sent the goals for African countries, including a 10% public spending target for agriculture, a commitment to zero hunger by 2025, reducing stunting to 10%, halving poverty, by 2025, and providing preferential and participation for women and youth in gainful and attractive agribusiness This document presents the critical actions required to achieve agricultural development agenda targets. The indicators are accompanied by baseline data and targets that can be achieved within the next 10 years. The framework provides standardised tools which can be used by CAADP stakeholders at country, REC (Regional Economic Community) and continental level to measure agricultural performance and progress. It intends to be used in improving planning processes and strengthening existing monitoring and evaluation systems to achieve CAADP targets within the next 10 years.
In recent years, several innovators in high-tech sectors have complained that the large volume of vague patents has become a major barrier to innovation. When start-ups attempt to unveil a new product, they risk violating a broad, obscure patent. In this paper, the authors argue to abolish the American patent system on the basis that there is no evidence patents improve productivity and that they have a negative effect on innovation. The paper's authors point out that problems with patents in fact run much deeper than many critics of the recent system have emphasised. The historical and international evidence suggests that the initial eruption of innovations leading to the creation of a new industry is seldom, if ever, born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a competitive environment. They also argue that the patent system is endangering public health by raising the cost of prescription drugs, while failing to generate enough innovative new treatments for life-saving diseases. The aim of policy, in general, should be that of slowly but surely decreasing the strength of intellectual property interventions with the final goal of abolition.
In this article (original in Spanish) the author analyses current movements termed 'populist'. He notes that they have some points in common. One of them is their clear opposition to globalization and economic integration and to the cultural and political homogenization that they entail and that is perceived as a threat to their national identity. A desire to recover identity and national control conditions is a nationalist sentiment based primarily (though not exclusively) on globalization being identified with a decline in the quality of life and well-being of the social classes behind this populism, even while this was due to the enormous increase in the wealth and welfare of wealthy minorities at the expense of the great decline in welfare and standard of living of the majority of the population The author asserts that socialist movements that have an opposition and alternative to a neoliberal conservative establishment differs from most populisms, which have an anti-establishment dimension but lack a proactive dimension . At the same time he argues that the failure of socialist or social democratic parties to develop an effective response to neoliberalism has been one of the main causes of the growth of right wing populist movements. The author argues for responses that recognise that the different sectors of the population have elements and conditions in common, that also provides more radical proposals for how to address these conditions.
The China Africa Project is a multimedia resource dedicated to exploring various aspects of China’s growing engagement with Africa. Through a combination of original content and curation of third-party material from across the Internet, the CAP’s objective is purely informational. The site states that none of the blog’s authors or producers have any vested interest in any Chinese or African position.
The Indian Patents Act of 1970 has been amended to allow for the granting of pharmaceutical product patents. India was obliged to make these changes to comply with the WTO TRIPS Agreement as of January 1st 2005. The new Patents Act will mean that over time the source of affordable generics may dry up. The law will only affect medicines that have come onto the market since 1995. However, the amendments made by the Indian parliament have some very important provisions for access in the short term, says Medicines Sans Frontieres.
Internationally, the involvement of women working underground is a relatively new phenomenon. In South Africa, women were recently allowed to work in the underground mines. However, the challenges of women and men are different and their coping mechanisms are not the same. This research investigated how women cope under the occupational and labour culture, and health and physical demands inherent to this type of work. By means of the non-probability sampling method, ten (10) women were purposively selected and a qualitative collective case study design was used. The findings illustrate that women in the mining industry experience challenges with regard to labour, health, occupational challenges, work-life balance, sanitation facilities and sexual harassment. They were found to use different mechanisms to cope with the challenges they face on a daily basis. The authors call for the mining industry management to devise ways to meet the needs of women and offer support in response to their daily challenges.
This book explores the history of and current collision between two of the major global phenomena that have characterised the last 30 years: the spread of HIV and other diseases of poverty and the ascendancy of neoliberal economic ideas. The book explains not only how International Monetary Fund policies of restrictive spending have exacerbated public health problems in developing countries, in particular the HIV and AIDS crisis, but also how such issues cannot be resolved under these economic policies. It also suggests how mounting global frustration about this inability to adequately address HIV and AIDS will ultimately lead to challenges to the dominant neoliberal ideas, as other more effective economic ideas for increasing public spending are sought. Rowden offers a unique and in-depth critique of development economics, the political economy dynamics of global foreign aid and health institutions, and how these seemingly abstract factors play out in the real world - from the highest levels of global institutions to African finance and health ministries to rural health outposts in the countryside of developing nations, and back again.