Africa in brief

NEPAD bodies to merge into African Union

African leaders have approved a three-year timetable for integration of the institutions of the continent's development blueprint into the governing and administrative structures of the African Union. They originally adopted the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in 2001, but with the old Organization of African Unity in the process of transition to the AU, the institutions set up to promote the plan have remained distinct, linked to the AU only on an ad hoc basis.

Photo : ©UN / E. Debebe

Meeting in Mozambique at the second AU summit in July, African heads of state and government authorized the chairman of the Union's Commission, former Malian president Alpha Oumar Konaré, to secure agreement with South Africa, which hosts the NEPAD Secretariat, to designate the body as an external AU office for a transitional period ending in July 2006. The decision is intended to give the new pan-African political organization, headquartered in Addis Ababa, time to become fully operational.

In the interim, the NEPAD Secretariat will continue to operate under the direction of the Implementation Committee, composed of 20 African heads of state and government. These NEPAD bodies and the AU will continue to develop working relationships and lay the groundwork for full integration. This will include harmonizing policies and developing a sustainable funding mechanism for NEPAD after 2006. Toward that end, the AU has urged member states and the international community to step up financial support for NEPAD.

HIV spreading rapidly among young people

HIV/AIDS is spreading most rapidly among young people in sub-Saharan Africa, notes the UN Population Fund's (UNFPA) State of World Population, 2003. The report, released in October, finds that 6,000 youths aged 15-24 are becoming infected every day across the world, constituting half of all new infections. In sub-Saharan Africa, the report observes, an estimated 8.6 million young people (67 per cent female) are now infected, followed by South Asia with 1.1 million infections.

Poverty, gender inequality, insufficient funding for programmes and a severe lack of information and services for prevention are the main reasons for the spread, UNFPA reports. As a result, many young people are unable to avoid unwanted pregnancy, unsafe childbirth and sexually transmitted infections.

"There is a critical need for more education and increased access to youth-friendly reproductive health services," says UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

In 2001, international assistance for reproductive health programmes was $2.5 bn, just 44 per cent of the required annual amount agreed to at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. "Governments need to do more in order to meet their international development goals and commitments to young people," commented Ms. Obaid.

Finally, WTO agrees on access to generic medicines

In late August, members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) finally broke a two-year standoff over intellectual property protection and public health, agreeing to allow the export of generic drugs. Described by WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi as "historic," the decision grants countries permission to make generic versions of patented drugs and sell them to countries facing national health emergencies but unable to produce their own.

At a 2001 ministerial meeting of the WTO in Doha, Qatar, the organization agreed to amend existing intellectual property rules that permitted drug patents to be overridden only in cases of national emergency, allowing countries to make generic drugs, but only for domestic consumption. Developing countries argued that the rules did not make it possible for them to import cheap generic drugs produced by other countries, such as Brazil, especially for the fight against AIDS.

Under the new provision, both the importing and exporting country must issue compulsory licences overriding patents on the relevant drug. The WTO will manage the system, receiving information on intended use and details on product type, quantities and licensees. The provision specifies that such drugs can only be produced for public, non-commercial use. "While we welcome the recent agreement, we remain nonetheless concerned that it should have taken so long to reach an agreement on such a fundamentally humanitarian issue," says Trade Minister Jaya Cuttaree of Mauritius. "It is a delay that Africa paid for through the loss of numerous human lives."

Non-governmental organizations such as Médecins sans Frontière say it is too early to celebrate, since the provision's conditions remain onerous. For instance, the issuing of compulsory licences will restrict the size of the market by specifying the quantities to be produced and the specific market for which they are being made. This, notes the non-governmental group ActionAid, limits the number of producers and traders in that market. That, in turn, limits competition, which is essential if the very high market prices of AIDS drugs are to fall. "The small size of individual markets would make any one market unattractive for a firm to enter into production of generic drugs."

African slums on the rise

If no serious action is taken, the world's 1 billion slum dwellers will likely double in number within 30 years, predicts the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat). The agency's report, The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, notes that while slums exist in all parts of the world, they are concentrated in developing countries. An estimated 50 per cent of slum dwellers are in South-Central and Eastern Asia, 14 per cent in Latin America and 17 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.

"The proportion in Africa is rising rapidly as populations increase and urban housing shortages continue, while it is falling in Latin America due to regularization and slum improvement," the study notes. The average proportion of city dwellers living in slums in developing countries is 43 per cent, UN Habitat reports, but for sub-Saharan Africa the proportion is "an alarming 72 per cent." Slums often lack basic services such as water and sanitation, have inadequate and unsafe building structures and are overcrowded. The report urges local and national governments and the international community to take action against poverty, the underlying cause of slum proliferation.

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