Third CPD Anniversary Lecture

An eminent scholar with outstanding research and policy influencing credentials, Professor Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is currently teaching International Affairs at The New School in New York, and is serving as the Vice-Chair of the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP). Through her works, among others, as the lead author of a number of UNDP Human Development Reports, as a principal contributor to the assessment of MDG delivery, and as an engaged analyst of the globalisation process, Professor Fukuda-Parr has been an influential voice in advancing the interests of developing countries in relevant global discourses. She has also been closely involved in the shaping of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the UN. An author of many contributions on poverty and inequality, human rights, conflict prevention and global technology, one of her recent publications Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights (2015) has received the 2016 Best Book in Human Rights Scholarship Award of the American Political Science Association.

Professor Fukuda-Parr was educated at Cambridge University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the University of Sussex. She has taught at Columbia University and Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Trade Agreements and Health
New Trends and Challenges for Access to Medicines

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr

Gaps in innovation and access to medicines and treatments continue to remain one of the critical challenges for humanity in the twenty-first century. While there have been unprecedented scientific advances that have extended human longevity during the twentieth century, millions are still locked out of accessing life-saving drugs and medicines. With rapidly rising prices of medicines and treatments across the world, the issue affects not only poor people and poor countries, but also people in high-income countries.

This Lecture will argue that such a situation arises from a particular model of financing for biomedical innovation. The Lecture will further argue that new trends in regional trade and investment agreements can have critical consequences for access to medicines and other national health priorities for many developing countries. What has health got to do with trade agreements? Trade agreements of the twentieth century have mostly been about barriers such as tariffs and quotas on import and export of goods. Today’s trade agreements are more about investments than trade. They contain extensive provisions that regulate the market environment for investors and exporters such as state-owned enterprises, public procurement, dispute settlement between investors and the state, food safety, intellectual property rights, and much more. Such rules can constrain the scope of action that national governments have in pursuing respective national priorities. The most contested issue in this connection relates to the intellectual property provisions that strengthen and lengthen patents, giving pharmaceutical corporations new monopoly rights to charge high prices. Such measures delay generic competition in pharmaceutical markets and help maintain monopoly pricing, adding to the pressure of escalating prices. Globally, provisions in new trade agreements could reduce the ability of governments to address some of the most urgent public health priorities of the day.

For Bangladesh, the challenges that the emerging scenario poses are both specific and pressing. They will shape the potential opportunities and constraints not only in the context of expanding access to medicines for the population, but also with respect to the development of the pharmaceutical industry, one of the most dynamic sectors of the Bangladesh economy.