----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Grimes" <cgrimes at rawbw.com>
> Maybe Patrick Bond can write a few words on how SA is doing. What I
> think is going on from the nasty US corporate view is these bastards
> are trying to figure out methods to expand their very profitable
> model.
Managed care is making inroads, but not as fast as the aspirant HMOs and their US partners want, mainly because of physician and small pharmacist resistance. The tragedy here, Chuck, remains that the government doesn't want to give AIDS medicines to at least half a million citizens who need them now. Latest treatment figures are still below 20,000 (after being persistently defeated in the courts - of law and of public opinion - the last few years, the Mbeki regime promised there would be 50,000 on treatment by last March). Mbeki and his lead officials have a relatively clear understanding with Big Pharma: they won't push to get parallel imports or licensing of local generic production, in part because they don't want a bad reputation in TRIPS terms. But more generally, the latest craziness over Nevirapine - as reflected in another bizarre riff at http://www.anc.org.za a couple of weeks ago - is yet another indication of Mbeki's reluctance to treat people. See http://www.tac.org.za for antidotes. (I did a little write-up of this situation in Against the Current in July-August '04, and a long analysis of US pharmacorp pressure in a 1999 Int'l Journal of Health Services article, which I can send along offlist if you like.)
> I think they are using the AIDS drug distribution regime as a
> testing ground to get their foot in the door on how to `develop' the
> rest of the healthcare delivery system.
In fact, I'd watch the Bill/Melinda Gates Foundation for evidence of the opposite: instead of integrating AIDS medicines with the rest of the healthcare system in places like Botswana, there was a tendency to set up an alternative - but still patented - medicines dispensing system and *not* pay attention to the rest of the public health regime. (Gates' interests are also in preserving intellectual property rights, of course.)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> I suspect Wolfensohn would want us to believe he's doing the best he can
> under the constraints of Wall Street & the IMF. Stiglitz told me once that
> he thinks (and it's not surprising he would think this, so I'm not sure
> how to take it) that most of the Bank, including Wolfy, is behind
> Stiglitz' critiques. I think that's to let the WB off too easily - a good
> cop is still a cop - but it's also true that the Bank isn't the lead dog
> of neoliberalization, and many people who work there believe they're doing
> some good (and the six-figure salaries and biz class travel are pretty
> nice too).
The new Mallaby book on Wolfy had me in stitches too. When in September 1998 Stiglitz told me he thought that 75% of WB economists agreed with his Post-WashCon perspective, I asked Robert Wade if that was true. He replied: 'They tell him what he wants to hear.'
We run into WB people all the time in South Africa, and they are basically unreformed neoliberal economists or wannabe economists, who still push the core dogmas of cost-recovery, commercialisation, and for-profit investment opportunities above all else. The WB is definitely the lead dog of neoliberalism in most coal-face situations, and remains widely despised by the progressive movements in this region. See a report below from Lusaka a couple of weeks ago.
If anyone is interested in the fantastic network - IFIs-OUT! - that was formed in April and is hosted by Jubilee South, let me know.
Ciao, Patrick
IFI-out: mailing list for strategies and campaigns to dismantle all the international financial institutions (including the World Bank, IMF, and all the regional development banks). To post to this list send an e-mail to IFI-out at listserver.citizen.org ************************************************************
No to World Bank-Civil Society relations
By Console Tleane
"There may come a time when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, but I am still betting on the lion."
Henry Wheeler Shaw should have had the feelings of the participants at Saturday's session on engagements between the World Bank and the civil society in mind when he said the above words. Other people had adapted the above quotation to read: "The lion and the lamb may lie side by side, but the lamb shall forever be restless."
The latter reflected the mood in the session more accurately. The restlessness of the participants was evident from the beginning of the session. The session was supposed to consider developments that have already taken place between some civil society organisations, particularly those led by CIVICUS, whose director, Kumi Naidoo, introduced the topic.
Naidoo informed the meeting about a series of consultations that have taken place between the World Bank and civil society. These consultations will culminate in a meeting scheduled for April 2005.
Without a single dissenting voice, participants rejected any dealings with the Bank. The Bank's bad record on the continent and the tonnes of evidence that indict it for the continued poverty of the African people were cited as the main reasons why any engagement will not be meaningful.
The message was clear; there is no way that the ASF would entertain any dealings with the Bank. And those who would like to continue dealing with it will have to do so out of their own accord.
(published by African Flame (Sunday, 12th December 2004), a newsletter of the African Social Forum. The 2004 ASF was held in Lusaka, Zambia)