Introducing AfricanLiberty.org

Dear Friends,

I have been relatively dormant on my blg, but it is for a good cause. It is my pleasure to add a new product to the wonderful work we are doing in Africa and for Africa.Africanliberty.org is the Cato Institute and IMANI's African-focusedprogram. It was launched in December of 2007 and provides content inEnglish and Swahili, as well as access to material in French,Portuguese,and Arabic.

Our mission at AfricanLiberty.org is to be the continent's main platformfor sharing practical ideas generated by Africans and those who believe in Africa 's positive future.

Our vision at AfricanLiberty.org is to bring African voices for libertytothe wider world and work with African media to disseminate policy ideasfor a new century of peace, freedom, and prosperity.AfricanLiberty.org also produces audio and video content and will beworking in 2008 with African broadcast media, especially radio.

Inaddition, AfricanLiberty.org will publish books in African countries (inEnglish and, in conjunction with UnMondeLibre.org and OrdemLivre.org, inFrench and Portuguese). The first books planned for 2008 include Africaneditions of the works of Frederic Bastiat, Johan Norberg, and FranklinCudjoe.Our team has familiar faces.

However, in addition to Mr. Kofi Bentil andmyself, let me introduce Mr. Selorm Branttie, who was my successfulcampaign strategist during College days and now Business DevelopmentManager at AfricanLiberty.org.

Please see http://www.africanliberty.org/?q=node/85 for detailed profileof team members. We will soon be inviting friends on this forum to behelpme edit this exciting work. AfricanLiberty.org is truly dedicated topromoting freedom enterprise, educated leadership and success in Africa.Let's think together.

Sincerely,

Franklin Cudjoe

Editor, AfricanLiberty.org

Mugabe Ambushed in Lisbon

African and European leaders on Sunday ended their two-day summit in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, with the adoption of a Declaration pledging their commitment to a new strategic partnership based on interdependence, equal sovereignty and respect. I will return to the thorny issues of trade as it relates to competition and liberalization.

Thankfully one issue was not forgotten; MUGABE:

If Mugabe thought his only outspoken enemy was British Premier Gordon Brown, he was dead wrong. After haven been baited by Brussels to attend the second AU-EU meetings with the hope of launching yet another vitriolic attack on his arch enemy , the UK, he was spell bound when German Chancellor Angela Merkel did what was onerous, but humane. She fell short an inch of describing Mugabe as the new evil on the block, “damaging the image of new Africa". Mugabe, who felt like the earth opening for him to be swallowed couldn’t hide his gory face and had to be soothed by his colleague African leaders who as usual see him as the last bastion of African freedom. Such misguided adulation for open tyranny is the very reason why Africa is in a mess.

However, the EU ought to share in the blame for the state of affairs in Zimbabwe and any of the continent’s troubled spot, albeit retrospective. The West’s past misdeeds were usually compensated by massive injection of poor people’s taxes from the West to the rich and pillaging leaders of Independent era African leaders. Despite the common knowledge that such freebies only politicized life on the continent, they have continued and metamorphosed into grand schemes, with torrents of aid being poured into schemes such as Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa and the US’s Millennium Challenge Account. Mugabe and his closest pal, Al Bashir of Sudan would be unworthy recipients of such monies, but then the fact that other shameful leaders such as Congo’s Dennis Sasso Nguesso would receive money after blowing $300,000 in one visit to Washington should make our tummy churn in awe.

We know this absurdity will continue for a while, especially as China now gives freely without meddling in good governance indicators in a country. May be it gives Africa some amount of sovereignty and ownership of policies- but such ownership should include the responsibility of the consequences of bad judgment and bad leadership

We should be happy however that as host Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates described the meeting as a "summit of equals", he truly meant "We are equal in our human dignity... but also equal in terms of political responsibility,”.

Foreign Aid and its unintended consequences.

Later this week, I will be speaking in Rome on the illogicality of foreign aid, and as if by intelligent design, my friend Todd Kruse, anchorman of the Uhuru Policy Group sent this powerful letter to me. Aside getting it on my blog, I will ensure media houses publish it as well. You can send your comments on this letter. Many thanks Todd.



Uhuru Policy Group – letter to US Congress

November 26, 2007

Dear Members of Congress,

Each year numerous non-governmental organizations pressure the world’s leaders and international financial institutions for debt forgiveness for some of the world’s poorest countries. Groups such as Oxfam, DATA (led by U2’s Bono), Jubilee USA and others like Jesse Jackson plead for relief on behalf of the world’s poorest citizens. Their efforts have succeeded in securing billions of dollars in loan forgiveness.

This campaign is a well intentioned effort meant to facilitate a rise from poverty for the world’s poor. While the ultimate goal is no doubt noble, the approach used to achieve these goals undermines the very efforts aimed at reducing poverty in the developing world.

Today, tools are available for countries that are interested in debt management, eliminating poverty and increasing wealth. Many nations, including the poorest countries in places like Africa have taken advantage of special programs like the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative supported by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s International Development Association, making them eligible for debt forgiveness.

Unfortunately, without adopting economic and good governance reforms, the cycle of debt accumulation followed by debt forgiveness will continue leaving programs like HIPC irrelevant. To reverse the debt accumulation-debt forgiveness cycle to create wealth for the poor, we must first address the primary factors that are contributing to the impoverished state of these economies.

There is no better example than the Republic of the Congo, which was granted HIPC status in 2006 and received approximately $3 billion in debt forgiveness[1]. This begs the question -- how does a country with 5 percent annual GDP growth[2] and billions of dollars in oil revenue continually find itself pleading with its creditors for debt relief? Look no further than its president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who rose to power through a violent coup in 1997. President Sassou-Nguesso is notorious for extravagant spending on trips to the United States. In one egregious example, he spent nearly $300,000 at the Palace Hotel in New York City, significant portions of which were paid in cash.[3] Despite such lavish trips abroad, the Republic of the Congo spends millions of dollars each year on high-powered Washington lobbyists that pressure the U.S. Government for additional debt relief while the average citizen lives on less than $4 per day[4].

Recently, Senator Patrick Leahy added an amendment to HR 2764, the Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2008, which would restrict the issuance of visas to officials of foreign governments and their families involved in corruption in extractive industries, such as oil and diamond mining. The amendment targeted seven countries, including the Republic of the Congo.

In introducing this amendment, Senator Leahy has taken a critical step in assuring citizens in impoverished countries that the United States will not allow corrupt foreign officials or their families to operate with impunity. Support for this amendment would demonstrate action and resolve on the part of the United States in addressing these country governance issues. However, more must be done.

There must also be action in recipient countries to eliminate political corruption, increase transparency and facilitate economic growth. We must refrain from continuing to make financial commitments to leaders of nations who do not make a commitment to their own countries.

We must break the cycle of debt accumulation and debt relief in countries like the Republic of the Congo by eliminating political corruption, increasing transparency and promoting the importance of foreign direct investment. It is important that the U.S. Congress take a stand against corrupt foreign leaders who seek debt forgiveness while they line their pockets with state funds. The end result of today’s current foreign aid system is that millions of citizes in these debtor nations remain in abject poverty.

I strongly urge you to support the Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2008 and Senator Leahy’s amendment.


Sincerely,
Todd Kruse
Uhuru Policy Group co-founder
Minnesota

[1] http://www.goalusa.org/newsroom/sundaytimes0107.shtml
[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cf.html

Addressing Africa’s health workforce crisis

By McKinsey Consult

"Millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa suffer needlessly because they cannot obtain medical care from trained workers. Fully 820,000 additional doctors and nurses are needed to provide the region with even the most basic health services. The money to hire, train, and sustain such an increase won't be available in the foreseeable future. Even if funding materialized, 600 additional medical and nursing schools would be needed to fill the gap, and it would take more than two decades to train the requisite number of professionals. To ameliorate the problem in the coming decade, countries in Africa should build systems based on thoughtful ratios between professional and paraprofessional workers. Governments can't do so alone; the development community and the private sector also have roles to play."

This interesrting anylysis reminds me of a piece I did some time ago in which I quoted former US president Bill Clinton who said “You just can’t get the medicine, ship it into a country and drop it from the sky. If it is going to save people’s lives, the medicine must be accompanied by instructions, monitoring, by follow-up and by changing the medicine if necessary.”

..But sub-Saharan Africa averages 12.5 doctors per 100000 people, with dilapidated or nonexistent health structures in most countries.

Read more here

World Aids Day- IMANI and ABL make a call

Photos speak louder eh? Well, it was World Aids Day and we supported the Accra Brewery Limited to celebrate the day with a focus on the youth. We heard revealing stories from a survivor and an activist.

ABL's Managing Director, its Corporate Affairs Manger and myself granted interviews to the media on the importance of companies to focus their corporate social investments in HIV/Aids prevention and how questionable falling rates in HIV infections in Ghana should not occupy the Ghana Aids Commission, but rather be aggresive in using funds they receive from the Global Fund wisely and across the length and breadth of Ghana to educate children especially on the dangers of HIV/Aids.

Blame Chiefs for Land Disputes, Not Government- Franklin speaks his mind again.

Blame Chiefs for land disputes, not Govt . 30/11/2007 in the Ghanaian Statesman Newspaper

Chiefs have been cited as the principal cause of land disputes in the country and not the government. This is because the traditional rulers, described as 'warlords' in land matters, who own eighty percent of the land often times indulge in indiscriminate distribution and sale of the lands.

Franklin Cudjoe, CEO of IMANI, disclosed this when he contributed to a panel discussion organised by the Citizens Network for Democracy and Economic Development under the theme, "The Market and the State; The Politics of Property Rights and Economic Exclusion.”

“It is a lie to say that government is the problem of land administration, it is the chiefs and if we want to get things done properly we have to deal with them and also bring them in line,” he said.
He also identified the delay in the procedure of land registration as a disincentive to investment.
Mr Cudjoe, however, acknowledged that political interference also hinders the smooth land administration in the country.

Again, he said the country's constitution is inconsistent in relation to land ownership especially in the mining communities and suggested the amendment to restore property rights to the citizenry.

He admonished the government to be careful of the people it employs as managers and employees of the Land Administration Project because some of them frustrate the successful implementation of the project.

According to him, the way forward is for the government to put in place a comprehensive land data system. “I am for the individual being given ownership of the land and we should be able to do this by technology,” he stressed.

Contributing, Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta was not happy that chiefs in the country were being cited as trouble makers when it comes to land allocation and said as custodians of land, they have protected their God-given resources over the years.

He argued that without chief’s ownership and control of the land and perhaps distributing and allocating it to the people, the situation today could have been more chaotic.
He said there was never a time in the country’s history when traditional rulers, the government and stakeholders have met to deliberate on the way forward in the proper land usage and administration.

Kwadwo Afari, CEO of the CNDED, noted that the basic pillars of every society are economic freedom of the free market, political freedom of democracy and the liberty of property rights but pointed out that unfortunately Ghana has accepted the freedom of democracy.
According to him, his NGO believes that issues that affect the nation and its citizens ought to be discussed without any fear of intimidation.

Mr Afari, former NPP PRO, pointed out some contradictions in the 1992 Constitution with regard to property rights and land ownership which need amendment.

Nii Moi Thompson, an Economist, who chaired the discussion, said the country is in a transitional period and the regulatory frame work of government institutions and organisation must be made to work effectively and efficiently to promote the private sector.

Alcohol and its discontents- Welcome notes for Alcohol conference today

A couple of weeks ago, our Ghanaian President, was involved in a near fatal accident when a drunk drove his car into the Presidential motorcade…Thankfully the President escaped unhurt.

I don’t know what would have remained of alcohol if our President had moved on to the next world.

Even then we heard very much from every one why alcohol, the main provocateur of the accident should be banned.

But then you and I know that it was not the normal drinking limit that caused that deranged driver to do what he did, but excess consumption of a substance possibly brewed from a backyard factory.

Nonetheless, our national regulator had severally called for responsible production, promotion and marketing of alcoholic beverages. Sometimes Industry and ordinary Ghanaians have misunderstood the role of the regulator and unfortunate situations such as banning alcoholic adverts have been resorted to.

Eventually, reason has prevailed over confusion and the main regulator, herein called the Food and Drugs Board has done what to me is fair. However, the FDB and Industry have been taken to court for doing the right thing and so I urge every one including the media not to dwell on the pros and cons of alcoholic beverage advertising today.

3 months ago IMANI held the first alcohol workshop. That workshop was to understand the mechanics of a national policy for alcohol. With the help of our key expert Dr. Keith Evans and Mr. Kwamena Van Ess of the FDB, We learnt significantly that

1. Alcohol policy design must be based on the best available evidence and a balance between the rights and responsibilities of all those whom the policies will affect



2. There is an increasing recognition that an adversarial approach between the key players in not the most efficient or effective way of proceeding. Collaboration rather than conflict should be the underlying principle.


3. Alcohol should be regulated “Because it is a commodity with a potential for harm as well as good, it is reasonable to expect it to be regulated so that its beneficial effects are maximized and its harmful effects minimized. In this, it is far from unique. Many other commodities, from motor vehicles to pharmaceuticals, require similar balancing acts.’’

Today, we want to build on what has been learnt with wider stakeholder participation. We would hear respectively from the Ministries of Trade and Health “How an Alcohol Policy could affect Trade and Revenue for the State” and “How an Alcohol Policy can help mitigate abuse of alcoholic beverages”

Their presentations would be followed by Dr’ Keith Evans’ response, then we do lunch, come back into break away groups moderated by Keith Evans and with the help of Mr. Mitch Ramsay and Mr. Damon Ansell.

For those of you who are here for the first time, I’d like to say a few words about our key speaker Dr. Keith Evans. There is an extensive biography of his attached to your schedules.

Keith has tertiary qualifications in psychology, psychotherapy, public health and public administration and has worked in the areas of alcohol and drug policy, mental health and public health in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia for the past 25 years.

Since January 2005 Keith has been Chief Executive Office/Executive Director of Drug & Alcohol Services, South Australia and Principal Advisor, Drugs Policy to the Government of South Australia.

From 2002-2004 Keith was Chair of the Australian Intergovernmental Committee on Drugs. In this role Keith was responsible for the conduct of a review into alcohol advertising and youth drinking culture. Keith also had responsibility for providing advice to the Australian Government on the development and implementation of standard drinks labelling and an associated mass-media public information/education campaign. During this time a new national alcohol strategy was developed and implemented focusing on harm reduction, changing drinking patterns and influencing drinking cultures.

Keith has been traveling around the world and has spent significant amount of time within Africa to help countries design good alcohol policies. We are happy to host Keith again and to thank his able sidekick, Mr. Mitch Ramsay who is Policy Adviser for SAB Miller Africa and Asia for taking time off to join us again.

We also have Mitch’s opposite number for Diageo, Mr. Damon Ansell with us here as well. My appreciation also goes to all top Industry representatives here today and special mention to Diageo, GGBL, SABMILLER, ABL, West Coast Beverage who are leading the process for a self-regulatory industry in Ghana with the assurance that Kasapreko, Barons, Cape Trading, Gihoc Distilleries, Tata , Silver Spring and Socaf Beverages will be able players.

We are grateful to the FDB whose efficient directors are here today for accepting to join us. And of course, our deepest appreciation goes to the Ministers of Health and Trade for showing support to this all important process. I should mention that Br. Keith Evans will also act as Chairman as he would be responding to the various presentations and attendee comments.

I will now call on The Honourable Minister for Trade to make his first presentation. Thank you.

Franklin Cudjoe, IMANI Director

From African Resource Bank- A Recap.

The 5th Africa Resource Bank Meeting Outcomes

November 11 – 14, 2007

Theme: Positioning Africa in the 21st Century

Whereas other continents have seen their living standards improve in spite of enormous challenges, Africa , on the contrary, has experienced stagnation or retrogression. After more than 50 years of externally generated panaceas from donor agencies and the international community, Africa continues to plunge further into poverty. Optimistic that Africa, christened by Tony Blair as ‘the scourge on the conscience of the world’ has immense potential to be the pace setter in the world; business executives, scholars, thinkers and government representatives converged at the 5th Africa Resource Bank (ARB) meeting in Tanzania on November 11-14, 2007 to brainstorm on ‘Positioning Africa in the 21st Century. Seventy four participants from Kenya , Uganda , Tanzania , South Africa , Nigeria , Ghana , Malawi , Botswana , Zambia , Zimbabwe , Jordan , France , United Kingdom , United States of America , Germany , Italy and Brazil analyzed factors that have contributed towards the success of the West and emerging Eastern Economies. The delegates also charted possible ways to put Africa on the wealth creation, development and self esteem trajectory. The participants concurred that:

African History

Africans must assert their individual rights and embrace a culture of independence that colonialists suppressed.

Africans must rid themselves of the crippling ‘can’t do’ attitude and exercise free trade which they always did before colonialism.

African states ought to be decentralized by allowing larger involvement of the community into decision making.

Overall, to advance in the 21st century, Africans need to do a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of their status quo with a view of understanding where they came from, where they are, where they want to be and how to get there.

African Public Policy

Africans must pay taxes and in turn demand accountability and value for taxes remitted.

A recall clause for elected leaders must be included in African constitutions to hold legislators accountable to their electorate.

The media must be unfettered.

The role of government in Africa must be clearly spelt out and its size shrank to allow individuals and the private sector to run the economy.

Africa and Trade

Africans should look at the world (trade) as segmented ‘geographically’ i.e. East, West, European Union etc and keep its options open.

Stakeholders must be involved in harmonizing trade policies. Trade agreements e.g. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), World Trade Organization (WTO), East Africa Community (EAC), Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) among others should be evaluated for impact.

Africa must set up a common trans-African media highway to market the continent.

Africa needs to take custody of her destiny by understanding that creativity drives trade

Africa must abolish all manner of intra-Africa trade barriers to facilitate free flow of knowledge and hence develop a knowledge-based industry, as well as allow voluntary exchange.

Africa must put in place a key trade driver

Africa and Technology

Embracing technological changes is the key to increased efficiency and productivity.

Key players in the technology arena are the government and the private sector. The government needs to create a favorable policy environment that will enable technological diffusion, innovation and growth.

Africa must add value to its commodities through technology transfer with foreign partners

Atlas Shrugged- Review

Readers should pardon me for the break in the African Resource Bank updates, but I thought this event was too important to be missed.

IMANI Book Review Series

Featuring

“Atlas Shrugged” rated second most influential book after the Bible

Theme: Redefining Your Relationship with Society and Government
A Philosophical and Economic Journey with the US (Russian-born) novelist Ayn Rand

Saturday, November24, 2007, @ Ashesi University, Building Three from 10:00 am -12:00pm with Lunch

What would you do if society betrays your hard work, dignity, underpays and confiscates the property you have rightfully acquired?

What would you do if your contribution to the growth of Ghana in art, business, leadership, scientific research, or new ideas of any kind was penalized with say, exorbitant income taxes?
In her Magnum Opus (Greatest Work), Ayn Rand positions man as the ruler of his own life. As his contributions to society are met with disdain, disgrace and punishment, he decides to shrug, and go into solitary confinement. What happens to society afterwards will be the basis for our online chapter by chapter discussions of this never-to-put-down 1168 page book.

The book, Atlas Shrugged is billed by some surveys as the second most important book after the bible in the US.
Would you shrug?

For a detailed description of this project, please join the IMANI team over lunch. We will give you a copy for free and may depending on your circumstances defray part of your transportation fares to the venue.

Most importantly bring a friend thirsty for knowledge along. But the Sixty (70) seats are being filled quickly, so hurry.

RSVP, Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director, IMANI, franklin@imanighana.org or call Tadiana/Sandra (Office lines) 021 41 7094/ 0289510383 or (mobile) 0244 638 178.

African Resource Bank thinks for a 21st Century Africa- Part 1.

Last week, I was in Tanzania for the 5th African Resource Bank (ARB) meeting to help think and strategize Africa’s future with its contemporaries.

The ARB is an annual event that aims at promoting ideas that will enhance economic freedom and wealth creation in Africa. The past four brainstorming sessions focused on Building Africa through Trade, Property Rights in the African Context, Conquering Poverty in Africa through Business and Turning African People into a Resource.

The theme for the 5th Africa Resource Bank Meeting was ‘Positioning Africa in the 21st Century’. The event will brought together economists, academicians, policy makers, businessmen, farmers, think tanks and other organizations interested in Africa’s development. The event was for those who believe in Africa, the people of Africa and the power of market economics.

I was honoured to moderate a session on Africa's relationship with the West and its future and speak on Ghana's success in championing a responsible alcohol and taxation policy on alcoholic beverages.

My initial thoughts were that Africa's future was really unknown- Haven yet to take stock of its six decade long post-colonial relationship with the West; it has become comfortable prey to the Eastern giants, led unassailably by China. But then we know that China smiles at Africa with two faces. There is the danger of becoming subservient to China’s economic domination and being dumped after wards if our leaders do not understand how to engage China. Present indications give little hope.

We were later to hear why Africans are socialist in thinking but capitalist in practice as Mr. Thomas Adedayo of Free Africa Foundation, Nigeria craftily explained the disconnect between democracy as it exists in Africa and true liberalism, which releases the energies of a people to create wealth. Cato’s Tom Palmer's presentation on globalization was to me an enlightened approach to cultural dynamics within an increasingly ‘flat’ world. He allayed the fears often formented by some African leaders, such as former Tanzanian President Mkapa, that globalization is the final straw to completely destroy Africa after slavery and colonialism prepared the way.

Cato’s Marian Tupy dwelt on the false promise of the much hyped G8 summit in Gleaaneagles, 2005, for the simple reason that many Africans and Africanists thought it had the magic bullet to do away with Africa’s debts, ensure trade justice and double aid until 2010. While he agreed that forgiving debts was not a bad idea, he was worried about how gains from such policy could be utilized within Africa’s domestic economy given that grand official corruption accounts for 25 per cent of the continents GDP.

He agreed that trade should be completely free, but noted quite sadly that while Africa begs of the West to ease trade flows, it is its own enemy as the highest forms of trade barriers are within the continent. I thought how we could trade freely when leaders such as the Tanzanian representative on Tony Blair’s Africa Commission ignorantly claim that Ghanaians chocolate wouldn’t sell in Tanzania because Tanzanians do not eat chocolates.

Fred Nelson of Maliasili Initiatives in Tanzania gave an excellent overview of Tanzaina’s development trends and trajectories. Fred’s presentation exposed the leaky areas of the Tanzanian economy while proffering solutions for it to take off. I drew similarities with the Ghanaians economy as well as the entire continents economy, not least because the two economies have been touted by the World Bank as the fastest reforming in Africa.

My own friend, Chalres Khamala, Esquire, Advocate of the High Court of Kenya sought to make his presentation relevant to the theme of the session. His presentation was titled “Movies and rights: imitation as a means of transcending culture.” While he questioned the capacity of African movie and media industry to ensure that artistes benefit from their works, he was worried that without governmental intervention by way of finance, Africa’s movie industry would remain a shadow of the successful West, with consequences for its culture.

Finally Jasson Urbach of the Free Market Foundation in South Africa urged Africa not to stay agrarian, but diversity its economy and take advantage of the digital revolution. Africa is the fastest growing market for mobile phones as state-sponsored fixed line companies have naturally underperformed. Jasson thinks, and I agree with him, that rather than see the cell phone for instance as a play thing, it could be used for transacting varied businesses.
In my next post, I will speak on how I successfully negotiated with the Ghanaian to ease taxation on alcoholic beverages as well as lift a temporary ban on alcoholic beverage adverts.

All in all, Tanzania was good except I was trapped by female mosquitoes, got malaria and I’m still recuperating. Now this should be news, because the last time I had malaria was 7 years ago. Sounds like one shouldn’t mess around with mosquitoes in the East.

Erring Errand Boys from Brussels

The WHO meeting discussing access to medicines in developing countries ended last week with the clarion but misplaced call for develpoed countries and their pharmaceutical companies to do more; to literally give drugs free or face compulsory breaking of their patents.

I turdend down an invitation from a Patient Group to speak at the WHO conference in Geneva to be part of another meeting in Ghana ostensibly to forestall its truncated outcome, as it was premised on the WHO-IGWG talk shop in Geneva. My decision was worth it. I listened to some very imposing and erring errand boys from Brussels (callingthemselves consultants) who had been asked to "Raise Awareness of TRIPSand Public Health Concerns.....in the light of a demand for compulsorylicences".

These two bulleys did not want to acknowledge the fact that for us inAfrica, patents were just one part of the problem, if at all, as medicinesfor diseases of the poor are virtually off patent.

They woke up from their slumber (hopefully) when a Ghanaian pharmaceutical manufaturer presented a litany of reasons why he thinks the Ghanaian government was his real enemy, and not patented medicines. And Oh, when I gave all particpants a peak into the Wall Street Journal article, the two Brussel boys looked visibly angry.

By Popular Request and with Credit to the WSJE

Wall Street Journal Europe

Curing the Diseases of Poverty

By FRANKLIN CUDJOE

November 6, 2007
ACCRA, Ghana -- The World Health Organization will discuss this week the problems facing the world's poor. Many of the technocrats gathering in Geneva for the Intergovernmental Working Group on public health, innovation and property rights believe that eliminating drug patents will usher in a new era of global health and prosperity. They blame intellectual property laws for high drug prices and limited research and development into cures for the "diseases of poverty" -- illnesses that disproportionally affect the poor, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Unfortunately for us in the poorest nations, these health activists are missing the forest for the trees. Inadequate infrastructure, not price, is the chief obstacle blocking access of high-quality medicine to poor countries.

Imported drugs often sit for months in Africa's dirty, non-air-conditioned storage facilities -- either losing quality or expiring before reaching patients. Hospitals lack doctors, nurses, equipment and sometimes even electricity to effectively administer available medication. Roads are often in disrepair, making it particularly difficult to reach rural populations, where disease rates are the highest.

Malaria is a perfect example. In the 1990s, this infectious disease surged in sub-Saharan Africa as the parasites causing the illness became resistant to the most effective medications at that time. In 2001, the Swiss drug maker Novartis signed a contract with WHO to provide African patients with Coartem, its blockbuster antimalarial combination therapy, at production cost.

But demand was low because most African countries said they simply did not have the money to purchase the drug even at production cost. Consequently, Novartis was forced to close a production facility and destroy expired stock, incurring substantial financial losses in the process.

Even when pharmaceutical companies offered drugs for free, as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have done in the past with drugs to treat trachoma and malaria, respectively, African countries still had severe problems in storing the drugs and distributing them. Poor roads, dilapidated health centers and inadequate medical personnel to administer the right prescriptions all stood in the way of helping patients. The tools to cure malaria were ready -- we in Africa were not.

If the West is any guide, better health systems come with economic development and higher standards of living. Both are frequently stifled in poor countries by destructive policies and home-grown corruption. Import taxes and tariffs on lifesaving drugs, for example, can be severe. Brazil, currently leading the global crusade to break patents, levies a 30% tariff on all imported medicines. Kenya and Ghana slap tariffs of 37.8% and 33%, respectively, on all imported medicine, ultimately doubling drug prices under their national health schemes when retail costs are factored in. The paradox here is that Kenya is the main African advocate for breaking patents of essential drugs.

Many health activists, however, ignore these realities and instead focus their attention (and ire) on Western pharmaceutical firms, applauding nations that issue patent suspensions on drugs.
Last year, the Thai military government declared that it could not afford branded drugs to treat its citizens. So it issued compulsory licenses, or patent suspensions, for two AIDS medications and one heart drug and began producing copies locally. Though the quality of the drugs was unknown, the move was hailed by activists as a victory for "patients over patents."

But the generals weren't really worried about patients. If public-health concerns had been the prime motivation, the Thai government wouldn't have refused the massive price reductions the patent holders had offered. Even more tellingly, the government rejected the opportunity to use money from the U.N.-sponsored Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to purchase WHO-certified generics.
Far from a noble act, Thailand's compulsory licensing was a bald power play to beef up local manufacturing and generate revenues for a corrupt state. Unfortunately for Thai AIDS patients, producing the drugs locally has proved prohibitively expensive and has sharply limited their supply.

What's more, few generics and locally produced copycat drugs are tested and certified by respected regulatory authorities. Low-quality pharmaceuticals can expose viruses, bacteria and parasites to substandard doses of an active ingredient, breeding the bug's resistance in the process. This can doom an entire class of drugs. The poor quality of Thailand's copycat antiretroviral drug caused a rise in resistant AIDS viruses two years ago.

Another cautionary tale comes from India. Under pressure from antipatent activists, the WHO in 2004 green-lighted without testing an antiretroviral generic produced by Ranbaxy, an Indian company. The Geneva-based organization then had to quickly withdraw its approval again when Ranbaxy failed to provide adequate safety data.

By most estimates, it costs Western pharmaceutical companies around $800 million to develop a new drug and bring it to the market. The risk of losing a product through compulsory licensing will only discourage investment in future research.

Yet antipatent activists, with their myopic fixation on price, are relentlessly bullying bureaucrats to follow their advice. Let's hope the WHO won't succumb to the misconception that compulsory license can cure Africa's health problems. Instead, economic development remains the continent's best hope for eradicating the diseases of poverty.

Mr. Cudjoe is executive director of the Imani Center for Policy and Education.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119430106912883083.html

Franklin in the Wall Street Journal: Curing the Diseases of Poverty

Franklin Cudjoe, in the November 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal Europe and November 7, 2007 Wall Street Journal Asia:

...Inadequate infrastructure, not price, is the "chief obstacle blocking access of high-quality medicine" in developing countries, Cudjoe, executive director of the Imani Center for Policy and Education, writes in a Journal opinion piece. "If the West is any guide, better health systems come with economic development and higher standards of living," both of which are "frequently stifled" in developing countries by "destructive policies and home-grown corruption," Cudjoe writes. "Let's hope the WHO won't succumb to the misconception that compulsory license can cure Africa's health problems," Cudjoe writes, concluding that "economic development remains the continent's best hope for eradicating the diseases of poverty" (Cudjoe, Wall Street Journal, 11/6).

How to Plunder a Nation

This article has been published by several Ghanaian newspapers and picked up by other African media. Visit one of such sites, Ghana Web and read the over 80 comments it has attracted so far.. See a colourful version of the article in Kenya's Business Daily .

Franklin Cudjoe.

Public hearings of Ghana's Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee have left many Ghanaians and Africanists in awe. The shocking revelations of massive looting of tax payer and donor money by almost all government agencies completely drowns the apparent cacophonous economic gains chalked in the last seven years.

But it is not surprising that public office holders have become sophisticated in the art of plunder. It is abundantly clear that pillaging national resources have been legalised by ineffectual laws and unconcerned prosecutorial bodies. So an official can purchase 114 vehicles at over $1.5 million and can't provide documents covering such expense. Others can forge tax returns receipts and pocket tax proceeds. Worse still incriminatory evidence could even vanish from legal vaults and still have their managers at post.

Rather than arm existing organs that can fight corruption with teeth, the executive machinery has through sleuth of hands established surrogate bodies that will only act upon complex evidenced-based leads to exposing hard core corruption. Bizarrely, these bodies were hitherto housed in the belly of the seat of government.

Sadly, in the midst of such naked thievery, stomach-dependent state deputies peddle their trade of defending gross blunder with a deluge of statistics of corrupt acts of predecessor governments, as if public governance hinged on which government stole least from its citizens.Such is the terrain of accountable governance across much of sub-Saharan Africa while we embarrassingly bask in delusory accolades of leading development in the 21 st century.

But there is a hand that feeds this festering sore- foreign aid. Recently, U.K Premier Gordon Brown called on his Western counterparts to lead the moral crusade to increase aid to developing countries in order to make national health systems in poor countries work. Yes, money is needed to ensure that drugs are delivered to national health centres on motorable roads and pay health professionals who provide care. But why subsidise a national health scheme that collects premiums from citizens but hardly accountable to health delivery agencies? Why give money to the health sector when a quarter of what is stolen by politicians could have increased the number of HIV/Aids patients on antiretroviral treatment from the current 10,000 (out of an estimated 70,000) to 20,000 considering that it costs only US$6 per Aids patient per month.

Appallingly, only a little over 380 patients are actively accessing antitrovirals simply because they are poor, and sadly the safety nest to which they contribute taxes, however meagre, get plundered.

As if this reckless waste of public funds is not enough, the time and energy of ordinary Ghanaians get sapped into navigating a web of state-imposed impediments to starting and maintaining a business. It is true that 70 per cent of Ghanaian businesses are small-scaled and run operations without recourse to formal certificates of incorporation.

However, governments some times employ force to exact tolls and taxes from these operators who were originally disenfranchised from formalising their businesses, not to mention the high cost of capital and other pricey factors of production. Eventually, as indigenous businesses get overwhelmed by local barriers, they resort to importation of cheaper products in order to survive.

Every citizen is proud of what his nation can produce. But the same citizen will shy away when the local produce is priced above his monthly income and has inferior design features or contents.Rather than pressurize government to lower barriers to local production, some ignorant business men have fallen for cheap propaganda against imported products. The usual claim is that imports weaken local capacity by rendering factories redundant. However, such redundancy could have been saved if factories and other state-owned institutions had an injection of capital from thieving public officials and were properly managed.

Amazingly, the government understands economics very well and would usually outsource production of essential products such as textiles, printing of educational books and football tickets to foreigners who can produce at much lower costs. Disregard the fact that such outsourced contracts attract decent kickbacks. Only the government looks on while ordinary citizens helplessly struggle to overcome barriers to efficiency.We don't have to be schooled in the skills of fingering corruption when we do have the opportunity to institutionalise mechanisms that should minimise or prevent it.

If only governance was properly decentralized to engage ordinary citizens who will decide what their taxes should be used for; if only faulting public officials could be severely punished and make corruption less attractive; if only working citizens, from the President to the messenger could be treated equally before the law, we don't have to brood over the sorry state of governance in Ghana, a country many in Africa look up to for leadership, at least politically.

WHO is responsible for poor health of the world’s Poor

Next week, there will be a World Health Organization conference in Geneva on the subject of how to boost access to medicine among the world’s poor. Specifically, the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG) will meet from Nov. 5 - 10 to Develop a plan of action.

Many (governments and anti-development NGOs) are saying that the solution lies in weakening intellectual property rights — and are calling upon the WHO to encourage developing nations to issue compulsory licenses—essentially stealing medical inventions from western companies.


My discussions with the Ghanaian Minister of Health this week on Ghana’s position, revealed a rare sensible position- that breaking patents have the effect of weakening Africa’s ability to protect its medical breakthroughs in the future.

The Ghanaian Health Minister understands that while differential pricing of medicines will be a good way out for Africa, he knows patents are just a part of the solution- weak healthcare infrastructure, inadequate health insurance schemes, inadequate health professionals, price controls, taxes and tariffs on medicines (33% in the case of Ghana) and corruption are the real barriers to health care in Africa.

Refreshingly, his position is at variance with the African Group position in the IGWG, which is blindly being led by Kenya championing the overly rehearsed chorus that patents put profits before people. We at IMANI will respond appropriately if the WHO’s meeting maintains a perverted view on the poor’s health.

Help Free Kareem

I begin posting on this blog with a special appeal to the Egyptian Authorities to give meaning to the very existence of man--to pursue his lawful goals without let or hindrance; that the basis for such expression lies in the freedom of thought and speech.

As I write, a young Egyptian student blogger, named Abdul Kareem Nabil Soliman is languishing in a Cairo jail for allegedly defaming the Egyptian President and questioning the Islamisation of his University, Al-Azhar University. Kareem has served a year out of a four-year sentence handed him in a kangaroo-like court after truncated investigations.

Obviously, incarcerating some one for merely expressing his thoughts can only mean one thing- he lives under a repressive regime. We have hoped that African countries that callously suppressed freedom of speech would learn from others such as Ghana. Egypt risks being categorized into the infamous league of repressive states (if not already) if Kareem and any other persons suffering similar fate continue to be held in prison.

Please send a protest note to the nearest Egyptian Embassy or any influential Egyptian business groups you know. Alternatively, consider visiting Free Kareem and add your voice.

Thank you!

"Fair-Trade" vs. "Free-Trade"

Thanks Ray, for posting. It is fair to assume that there is a conflict between "Fair Trade" and "Free Trade" only because it has become fashionable to discredit Free Markets as not "Fair".

Besides, elements which constitute "Fair Trade" such as labour rights re sweatshops must be discussed contextually. A job with a Multinational Company that pays $2 a day is far better than back-breaking ploughing of barren land for days with the certainty of a low yield.

The suggestion that "Free Markets" is not "Fair" is a very callous one. It undermines nations that have laboured to make their citizens prosper through voluntary exchange and accountable governance.

What's worse, even as opposers of free trade sneer at the developed world for erecting barriers, it is instructive to know that there are far higher/difficult barriers to trade within developing countries than exists between developing and developed. Figure for instance , Nigeria, Africa's most populaous nation banning 96 agricultural based products from Ghana entering its markets. Meanwhile, the two countries belong to the Economic Community of West Africa States, supposedly a "Free Trade" area. Try travelling by road from Accra to Lagos and be thankful if you arrive with all your goods and money in tact.

So, developed countries, in Europe especially have reduced trade tarriffs to an average of 5.2% whilsts its between 14% and 17.9% in poor countries.( World Bank data for 2002). It is much worse within Sub-Saharan Africa. At the height of the famine in Niger in 2005, it still imposed an import tarriff of 34% on fertilizers. My country, Ghana, imposes 33% tarriffs on imported medicines, but blames patents on essential medicines as the barrier to accessing quality health care in Ghana.

The main Reason why "Free Markets" will never work for most developing nations is that the foundations upon which "Free Markets" work are at best a shadow of what exists in the West-I'm talking about the rule of law,transparent governance,decentralization of power and ownership of resources, free speech and above all property rights!"Free Trade" is "Fair Trade" as long as it based on the pricinciple or reciprocity; value in exchange for a service.

The fairness of such reciprocity rests with governments who have erroneoulsy assumed trade must be negotiated amongst political leaders rather than ordinary citizens.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! my name is Franklin Cudjoe and I am the President of IMANI Center for Policy & Education in Accra, Ghana. Through this interactive blog, you can connect with like-minded thinkers as well as discuss and share ideas and possible ways to liberalize Africa and enable Africans to produce, trade and profit. Through this forum, I hope to challenge and encourage you to think "outside the box" about the future for Africa. Feel free to comment and engage in dialogue. After all, the best solutions arrive when great minds challenge the staus quo and take confident steps in new territories.