Bush
in Africa
By
Mark Weisbrot
Znet
11 July, 2003
President Bush's five-day,
five-country tour of Africa has had political observers wondering: is
this just another photo-op, crafted to show that the President is not
just a "bring them on," unilateralist gun-slinger but a "compassionate
conservative?" Or does he intend -- for whatever political reasons
-- to actually deliver something of substance?
It should be known, first
of all, how far the United States and the rich countries as a group
are from actually helping the people of Africa more than they are hurting
them. If we look at the balance of payments for Sub-Saharan Africa,
there is an annual net drain of more than $12 billion dollars out of
the region. This is about 4.4 percent of the region's income, one of
the highest such transfers from South to North in the world. It is mostly
debt service.
In other words, some of the
world's poorest countries are transferring a large amount of their income
-- even after taking into account the new loans and grants that they
get for development assistance -- to the vastly richer North. This includes
their biggest creditors, the IMF and World Bank. The transfer is more
than these countries spend for health care or education.
This debt should be cancelled,
as the most knowledgeable non-governmental organizations have argued.
Even more urgently, Africa
is suffering from a horrible plague -- 29 million Africans have AIDS
or are HIV-positive. With only about 12 percent of the world's population,
the continent has 90 percent (11 million) of the world's AIDS orphans.
And about 1.5 million Africans die each year from tuberculosis and malaria.
On the public health front,
President Bush has gotten credit for pledging $15 billion over five
years to help treat and prevent AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. But
there are doubts about how much of this money is going to materialize,
and when. One year ago the Administration promised $500 million for
prevention of HIV transmission from mothers to newborn children, but
no money has yet been appropriated.
The United States has joined
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and -- in
accordance with our income -- could be expected to contribute at least
$3.5 billion. But the administration has budgeted only $200 million
for next year, less than 6 percent of our share, and $150 million less
than the current year.
The Bush Administration's
efforts are also corrupted by the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.
The big drug companies, backed by our government, have fought tenaciously
for years to prevent people in poor countries from having access to
more affordable, generic drugs. This is a life-and- death issue for
millions of people: the drugs that keep people with HIV/AIDS alive here
cost $10,000 per year, but the Indian pharmaceutical industry produces
the generic equivalent for less than $250. And it is not just AIDS that
afflicts people in poor countries: they also get heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, and many other ailments that are common to human beings.
The rich country governments
have recently made some compromises at the World Trade Organization
on these issues. But the Bush team is trying to split Africa off from
the hundreds of millions of people in other developing countries who
have similar needs, and they are pressuring other developing countries
-- Brazil, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and others -- for
more concessions to the drug companies.
This costly protectionism
-- the opposite of free trade -- is bad for everyone. Africa's interest
in this matter is tied to those of other developing countries in a number
of ways: for example, the generic drug producers sometimes need the
latter's markets for economies of scale, if they are going to provide
affordable drugs for the poorest countries.
Americans also have a direct
interest in the outcome of this conflict. The same companies that are
blocking access to generic, life-saving medicines for people in developing
countries are doing similar things on the home front. They have fought
for years to keep Medicare from including a prescription drug benefit.
They may have lost that battle,
but their monopoly pricing policies are making prescription medicines
increasingly unaffordable here. And so are the enormous costs associated
with "copycat drug" research and development, advertising
and promoting drugs for inappropriate uses, legal costs and other waste
involved in the present patent system.
What the Bush Administration
decides to do about the health crisis in Africa will therefore affect
all of us -- much more than most people know.
(Mark Weisbrot is co-Director
of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC www.cepr.net.)