The Bureau of the Working Group on the Amendment of International Health Regulations (WGIHR) rejected the WHO Secretariat’s proposal to delete equity-related amendment proposals (Article 13 A, Article 44 A and Annex 10).
The WGIHR Bureau did not circulate the Secretariat’s proposals as the Bureau’s text.
Three concepts – The Right to Healthcare, Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Primary Health Care (PHC) – are all globally accepted as essential principles in the construction of health systems. It is important, however, to delineate how these concepts relate to each other and the variance with which the terms themselves are defined as well as the relationship among and between them as they come to be established in different strands of health policy discourse. This is important because the three terms are often either taken up as independent strategies (with various pathways) or placed in subordinate, linear, conflicting or contradictory relationships rather than first understanding each one clearly and then building up a relational perspective.
The chair of the Doha fisheries subsidies negotiations on 5 February acknowledged that despite “constructive engagement” during the last several days, “some significant divergences in positions and overall approach still remain” on various issues concerning subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing (OCOF) ahead of the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) beginning in Abu Dhabi on 26 February.
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As previously reported in the SUNS, many developing countries seem to be sharply concerned over how the large subsidizers contributing to OCOF are going to be allowed to continue with their subsidies under seemingly weak two-stage sustainability criteria, as well as the alleged failure to include the issue of distant-water fishing in the list of prohibited subsidies.
With only 10 official negotiating days left, the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR) is under pressure to reach agreement on changes to the rules that govern global health emergencies.
The seventh WGIHR meeting which began on Monday officially kicked off the 2024 pandemic ‘season’ negotiations at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
It’s a short, intense season though, with the grand finale for both the IHR amendments and the pandemic accord set for the May World Health Assembly.
As Eswatini pointed out, the WGIHR only has 10 official negotiating days left until May, and by Friday, this time will be halved.
Addressing the equity-related gaps in health emergencies should be prioritised, stressed Eswatini, speaking for the 47 African member states and Egypt (part of WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region).
The Global Context: One of the big events in the global health policy in the coming year is the United Nations High Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance scheduled for September 2024 [1]. There is undeniable merit in categorizing antimicrobial resistance as one of the top-ten global threats, and the proposed breadth and urgency of action are highly required.
Conflict has become an integral part of the global health discourse. It is therefore not surprising that as the premier organization to govern health, WHO has had to find ways to navigate messy geopolitics.
In today’s edition, our final story from the recently concluded WHO Executive Board meeting, we bring you up to speed with WHO’s Global Health and Peace Initiative.
The context in which this discussion is unfolding is striking given the simultaneous conflicts in different parts of the world. But laid over the complex dynamics in global health, these conflicts serve to bring into clarity where member states of WHO stand in relation to each other, and in relation to the mandate of the WHO.
Major funders of WHO, are also masters on the geopolitical chess board. But this contradiction does not sit well on the ground, such as in Gaza, for example.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have an opportunity at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February 2024 to grant an extension to the much-embattled Waiver to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The Waiver, proposed more than three years ago, was intended to allow countries and their pharmaceutical firms to manufacture and distribute generic versions of COVID-19 products to their populations more freely.
Recently, the international community quietly passed by the 22nd anniversary of the conclusion of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in November 2023. The Doha Declaration, originally adopted at the insistence of the Africa Group, was a landmark moment in international cooperation in which the members of the WTO agreed (in principle) that public health should not be undermined by a narrow reading of global rules governing intellectual property (IP).
African countries are currently considering provisions in the AfCFTA and at the WTO to liberalise digital trade. As they face mounting fiscal pressures, it is imperative that they beware the implications of digital trade provisions for their ability to tax their digital economy. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive framework for analysing the impact of trade rules on tax regimes in the digital economy, with a focus on Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa. We explore how trade rules ostensibly shape tax policies and their implications for revenue generation. By examining rules regulating trade in services and the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions, we identify how these rules may directly impact tax policies and limit revenue generation possibilities. Moreover, digital trade rules, such as those related to data flows, localisation, and source code sharing, have the capacity to produce both indirect and administrative effects on tax measures. These rules can alter tax structures, taxation rights, data collection, and the capacity to monitor and implement tax measures.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announces the Health Technology Access Pool (HTAP) as the successor to the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP).
C-TAP was launched in May 2020 by WHO, the Government of Costa Rica and other partners to facilitate equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 health products for people in all countries. The platform provided a much-needed forum for technology partners to voluntarily share intellectual property, knowledge, and data in order to accelerate technological innovation and expand access to COVID-19 tools.
Despite the challenges faced in establishing a novel mechanism during a pandemic with limited resources, C-TAP secured 6 transparent, non-exclusive global licenses involving 15 technologies that span R&D tools, diagnostics, and vaccines – including the first from a private manufacturer. HTAP builds on the foundation laid by C-TAP while incorporating structural, process and other changes that will enable it to attract and support a diverse range of priority technologies more effectively.
Developed countries have managed to push the TRIPS waiver talks over the precipice.
After an arduous push uphill since the time developing countries led by South Africa and India, first brought the proposal to the WTO in October 2020, the “waiver” talks will soon be concluded, failing to reach consensus among members. (The original proposal had sought a time-bound temporary waiver of certain IP rules boost production of COVID-19 medical products.)
In its wake, however, the long-running “Waiver” discussions have revitalized, and brought under the scanner the relationship between intellectual property and public health. It has also entrenched further, the turf wars in the policy spheres of health and trade.
