Overcoming the Global Injustices of Energy Poverty

New Dimensions of Vulnerability to Energy and Transport Poverty

Memorandum of understanding between the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Development Programme. 7 May 1984

Policy Implications to Improve the Business Environment to Encourage Female Entrepreneurship in the North of Vietnam

Первые десятилетия сотрудничества для развития. Участники, достижения и трудности

Commodity Demand: Drivers, Outlook, and Implications

Barriers to Accessing Land in the MENA Region

Bibliography

Neglected diseases: under-funded research and inadequate health interventions: Can we change this reality?

Perishing Heritage:

PROTOCOL: Community‐Based Rehabilitation for People with Disabilities in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries

PROTOCOL: Access to Electricity for Improving Health, Education and Welfare in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Review

President's column Hurricane Harvey gave many SPE members in Houston at least a few days’ experience of life without electricity. Most of us find it hard to imagine what life would be like without the access to energy that we take for granted—the flip of a light switch, heating something in the microwave, or climate control in our homes. Yet nearly 1 billion people on our planet go through their days without electric lights, refrigeration, heating/cooling, clean fuel for cooking food indoors, and more. Those who rely on wood, peat, or dung for cooking spend hours each day gathering fuel. The gatherers are often the women and children, precluding their access to education and other opportunities. Use of kerosene for lighting has been linked to lung cancer, pneumonia, heart disease, and other health problems. Lamps are easily knocked over and start fires. A lack of access to electricity has ripple effects across many aspects of people’s lives, health, and safety. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that in 2017 more than 120 million people worldwide gained access to electricity, causing the total number of people without access to fall below 1 billion for the first time ever. IEA is expecting this reduction in energy poverty to double when 2018 data are available. The United Nations is targeting zero energy poverty by 2030. The gains during 2017 are largely attributable to a significant government effort in India to bring electricity to all of its villages and progress in a few African countries. Despite these gains, more than 55% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa and around 9% of those in Asia still lack access to the benefits of electricity. In 15 African countries, the percentage of the population without access to electricity is 75% or more. Where did the electricity for those 120 million new consumers come from? Since 2000, according to IEA, 26% of this additional access to electricity has come from natural gas, and to a lesser extent, oil. Another 45% has come from coal (commonly used for electricity in India). Since 2012, renewables have grown in the mix and now constitute 34% of new electric connections in developing areas, led by solar power. Those who argue we should stop using all fossil fuels immediately may not realize that they would be limiting the opportunity of those without power to improve their standard of living. Progress on ensuring access to clean fuels for cooking has been much slower. IEA estimates that 2.8 billion people lack access to modern cooking fuels, virtually unchanged from 2000. China and Indonesia have made progress through policies encouraging use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and electricity for cooking. IEA reports that 2.5 billion people cook with traditional biomass sources, while another 120 million use kerosene and 170 million use coal for cooking. Natural gas, LPG, and natural gas liquids have the potential for replacing these sources, with significant environmental and health benefits as well.

Peer-reviewed literature is the formal channel of communication for the scientific community. Through it, scientists convey their discoveries to one another across distance and time. Providing both a broadcast system and an archive, it is pivotal to the collaborative effort that is modern science. Without access to it, a scientist cannot keep up with develop-ments, has nowhere to contribute findings, and is pretty much out of the loop. One traditional problem of access to the literature faced by researchers and academics in developing countries has been the inability of their institutions to afford journal subscriptions, which can run into the thousands of dollars per publication. But things have been changing, with the last 10 years having seen important efforts to make the world’s peer-reviewed scientific journals available to these members of the research community either free or at a much-reduced price. Top-flight open-access journals have also come into being, theoretically making the papers they contain free for all to use. But is purchase price the only obstacle hindering the entry of the developing world’s researchers into international scientific dialogue?

The specialized agencies of the United Nations with responsibilities for public health, environmental protection, workers' health, industrial development, and the production of food, biologicals, and vaccines are currently developing “UN” minimal guidelines for biotechnology safety. The work is being conducted by the informal UNIDO/WHO/UNEP Working Group on Biotechnology Safety. Representatives of the United Nations (UN) Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) are full members of the working group. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) participate as observers. The reasons for undertaking development of these guidelines include (1) requirements of individual programs, (2) the need for an international norm, and (3) use by developing and other countries where such guidelines do not exist. Several studies were undertaken prior to work on the guidelines. These included a review of (1) current views of the risks associated with laboratory research, large-scale operations, and environmental application; (2) existing national legislation; (3) awareness of biosafety in the developing countries; and (4) various approaches to biotechnology safety application. The guidelines are in three parts: (1) safety guidelines for laboratory safety practice, including biological containment; (2) safety guidelines for large-scale (scaleup) practice; and (3) safety and risk assessment guidelines for release of genetically engineered organisms to the environment. After completion, the draft guidelines are scheduled to be “tested” in several interested developing countries. Following the testing procedure, the guidelines will be redrafted as necessary and then reviewed by a panel of experts.

Until recently it was seldom remarked that for over thirty years World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has been a specialized agency of United Nations. As a specialized agency, WIPO is meant to reflect and respond to priorities set in UN General Assembly--priorities often related to promotion of economic in poorer country members of UN, and that are part of mandate of a number of other specialized agencies. However, WIPO takes a specific (and idiosyncratic) view of development; its documents and activities suggest that is best served by a strong intellectual regime. This is to say that WIPO sees promoting use of intellectual rights (IPRs) throughout global system as best way to support economic development. In last two decades, WIPO has spent some time fighting back from its partial marginalization during Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, which resulted in establishment of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. (1) A key element of this project, to reinsert organization into politics of international policy around intellectual property, is its Patent Agenda, established at turn of millennium. The Patent Agenda has encompassed a number of sets of treaty negotiations at WIPO aimed at strengthening international enforcement of patents while also widening their scope. Although pro-IPRs position that underpins Patent Agenda is strongly held by negotiators and representatives of WIPO's richest and most developed members, it is not universally supported among organization's wider membership. Hence, in 2004, a group of WIPO's members set out a new Development Agenda as a direct response to Patent Agenda. The Development Agenda originated in a proposal that Argentina and Brazil informally circulated to members of WIPO at beginning of September 2004, for then imminent WIPO General Assembly. (2) Although there had been some discussion of developmental dimension of intellectual at previous assemblies, this was first time since WIPO's establishment in 1970 that a linked agenda, rather than merely a fragmented set of measures raised during assembly meetings, had been proposed. Almost immediately upon presentation, proposed Development Agenda gathered another eleven cosponsors (Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, and Venezuela) and became focus for developing country negotiations at WIPO, led by Group of Friends of Development, a group made up of two original proposers of agenda alongside cosponsors, and Peru and Uruguay. The central concern of Development Agenda's supporters is to make a central concern for WIPO, which hitherto has presented itself to world as merely a technical agency with no political role in global system. In this article, I briefly set out shape of Development Agenda and explore its political significance. The Development Agenda The Development Agenda focuses on an assertion that has been central to WIPO's practices: that WIPO exists to intellectual property through technical/legal support of its members. The agenda calls into question compatibility of this goal with expected objectives of an agency associated with United Nations. The UN's other (development-oriented) specialized agencies place technology transfer and poverty alleviation above globalized protection of IPRs in order of importance. Indeed, in original treaty making WIPO a specialized agency of UN, it was obliged to work with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to promote and facilitate the transfer of technology to developing countries in such a manner as to assist these countries in attainting their objectives in fields of science and technology and trade and development (Article 10, emphasis added). …