Cape Town, 27/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - During its session in Cape Town last week, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly adopted two resolutions on health-related aspects. It invited the European Commission and the Council to invest in the elimination of poverty and the setting up of collective healthcare and equipment services, accessible to all. The Assembly considers that the decision to grant at least 35% of European cooperation aid to social infrastructures, as foreseen in the 2002 budget, including financial provision from the European Development Fund, is vital for guaranteeing improved health services in ACP countries. It trusts that this figure will be regularly reviewed upward in future. The Assembly invites the EU and the ACP countries to develop and to implement measures to reveal and reduce discrimination against disabled persons and the elderly in the health sector, and calls for programmes to be set in place to enhance the awareness of health staff to the needs of the disabled. The Assembly also places emphasis on the fact that all women and men must have easy and affordable access to quality reproductive health services. It calls on ACP and EU countries for more funding of reproductive health services and to enhance coordination between donors. Furthermore, the Assembly requests that there should be a sustained effort to eradicate disease and childhood troubles by proceeding to vaccination and by ensuring clean water and foodstuffs are provided.
The Assembly hails the adoption, in November 2001, of the Doha Declaration, which gives top priority to health imperatives over trade regulations in developing countries, and insists that provisions be implemented as soon as possible. It calls for a solution to be found in the context of TRIPS agreements so that the ACP countries which cannot produce their own pharmaceuticals can resort to parallel imports of generic medicine from third countries. The Assembly also fears that the TRIPs agreement on the patentability of living organisms will limit access by the populations of poor countries to traditional plant-based treatments and will be detrimental to biodiversity. It calls for the TRIPS agreement to be revised in order to make a clear distinction between "discovery" and "invention" and in order to exclude all living organisms from the scope of patentability.
Several MEPs insisted during the debate on the need to grant priority to the health and education of ACP countries. This was mainly the case for British Labour member Richard Howitt, who also urged for an agreement between the EU and the ACP to be negotiated on the aid percentage that should be devoted to reproductive health. This position was also defended by Danish MEP Ulla Sanbbaek (Europe of Democracies and Diversities), who recalled that there is not even a condom factory in Africa. "It is drinking water, not weapons, that is needed!", exclaimed British Conservative John Bowis, who insisted on the protection of children, the old and elderly and disabled, who continue to suffer considerable discrimination. French Green member Didier Rod stressed that the fight against the many infectious tropical diseases should be stepped up. Speaking of the disappearance of health structures because, under pressure from the IMF, many countries first of all sought to reduce the health and education budgets, Mr Rod insisted on the need to rebuild, with EU aid, real public health services in ACP countries. Ugandan deputy James Mwandha also insisted on the problems linked to reproductive health as well as the discrimination suffered by the disabled and those who have contracted the AIDS virus.
The important place held by reproductive health in this debate can be largely explained by the efforts made by the NGO, "Marie Stopes International" to heighten awareness of the problem. It recently published a very complete information paper on this theme. This was presented for the first time on 6 March to the European Parliament in Brussels, during a meeting of the working group on population, sustainable development and reproductive health attended, notably, by Ms Banotti, Ms Gröner, Ms Kinnock, Ms Sandbaek and Messrs Fernandez Martin, Maaten and Rod. A representative of this NGO, which is already active in some twenty ACP countries, was present during the session and had contacts with ACP parliamentarians. The dossier is available from Marie Stopes International (Tel.: 32 2 551.54.59, e-mail: wgpop@stopes-org.be).