In an increasingly globalised world, health is ever more affected by international institutions. Over the past 25 years, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have increasingly dominated policymaking in developing countries, leading to substantial effects on health. Furthermore, global threats to health, such as HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza, and climate change, need eff ective collective action at the international level. Therefore the system of global governance is of central, and growing, importance to health. However, global governance is becoming increasingly controversial, particularly in the case of global economic institutions.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Vote buying in the UN Security Council
Woodward D: The Lancet 369: 12-13, 6 January 2007
AIDS drugs for Africa deal is off as pharma giants pull out
Townsend A: The Independent, 3 December 2006
Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, are reported to have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and AIDS patients in poor nations receive vital drugs. The agreement was drawn up during three years of talks between companies and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions worldwide.
An untapped supply of HIV/AIDS treatment
The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006
Thousands of people living with AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are going without treatment while the production line at a modern antiretroviral (ARV) factory in the east of the country lies largely idle. Pharmakina has produced generic ARVs since April 2005 in the eastern province of Bukavu, the first pharmaceutical firm to do so in central Africa, but it is now forced to await approval from the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs
Raja K: Third World Network Info Service on Health Issues, 30 November 2006
The World Health Organisation (WHO) needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs. AIDS treatment will not be sustainable unless international institutions get serious about the high cost of newer medicines. This warning comes from Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) the medical humanitarian organisation. MSF says that the WHO has failed to outline a strategy to help countries access these drugs which remain largely inaccessible in developing countries. Thailand uses compulsory licence for cheaper AIDS drug. Thailand, however, has for the first time announced it will issue a compulsory licence for the domestic manufacture of a key AIDS drug. The following articles report on both these issues.
Behind closed doors: Secrecy at the International Financial Institutions
Musuva C: IFI Transparency, 2006
This study involved making freedom of information requests for information on IFIs in five different countries: Bulgaria; Mexico; Slovakia; South Africa and Argentina. The study found that information was difficult to obtain and there were varying degrees of disclosure across countries, with only 22 per cent of the 120 requests resulting in full disclosure and a number of requests being totally ignored by the IFIs. The Charter is the GTI's flagship statement of the standards to which IFI information disclosure policies should conform and a key advocacy tool for the promotion of more progressive policies.
Civil society excluded from the G20 business meeting
Melbourne IndyMedia, November 2006
The G20 is a private meeting, hence organisations such as corporations, aid agencies, consumer organisations and other non-government organisations (NGOs) are not eligible to attend as delegates. This report critiques the selective participation of business in the meeting, with some of the world’s largest energy and mining companies reported to have full access to all the delegates at a working lunch. The report noted the cincidental holding of the inaugural meeting of the Energy and Minerals Business Council in the same hotel and dates as the formal meeting of the G20.
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.
Patents versus patients: Five years after the Doha declaration
Oxfam International, November 2006
This Oxfam briefing paper discusses the actions that countries have taken towards meeting their obligations made at the Doha Declaration on the TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and Public health in November 2001. The Declaration says that developing countries can enforce public health safeguards to enable price reductions on medicines, and that countries with insufficient drug manufacturing capacity can access generic medicines (medicines produced in developing countries which are cheaper than brand name drugs). The paper finds that although public health safeguards have been weakened or eliminated through bilateral and regional free trade agreements, many developing countries are still managing to enforce them.
Globalisation and social determinants of health: A diagnostic overview and agenda for innovation
Schrecker T, Labonte R: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006
This paper describes research strategies to address the relation between globalisation and social determinants of health through an equity lens, and invites dialogue and debate about preliminary findings. The first part of the paper identifies and defends a definition of globalisation and describes key strategic and methodological issues. The second part describes a number of key ‘clusters’ of pathways leading from globalisation to equity-relevant changes in SDH. The third part provides a generic inventory of potential interventions, based in part on an ongoing program of research on how policies pursued by the G7/G8 countries affect population health outside their borders.
Oxfam warns proposed new EU trade policy is 'development blind'
Oxfam International, 4 October 2006
The European Union's new external trade plans presented by Peter Mandelson in Brussels will pose a serious threat to poor countries' development if implemented, said international agency Oxfam. The EU is pushing an aggressive liberalisation agenda in developing countries and trying to impose rules on competition, investment and government procurement that won't help development.Demands for stronger intellectual property rules and enforcement, which threaten to limit access to vital medicines for people in developing countries as well as depriving farmers of the right to ownership of seeds.