Working paper 2.B Sponsors: Cuba, Argentina and Togo Signatories: China, Paraguay, Brazil, Belize, Bhutan, Morocco, Angola, Mali, Malta, Honduras, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Kuwait, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Eritrea, Rwanda, the Russian Federation, Iceland, Luxemburg and India Topic B: Develop a global partnership for development in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies; provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries. World Health Organization,
Recalling its resolution 57/2 of 16 September 2002 on the United Nations Declaration on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Recalling further the 2005 World Summit Outcome, including the recognition of the need to meet the special needs of Africa, Asia and South America to provide access to drugs, Recalling also the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals and its outcome document, especially to those countries most off track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, Aware of the fact that some countries have primary responsibility for their own economic and social development and that the role of national policies and development strategies cannot be overemphasized, Stressing the need to implement all commitments by the international community regarding the problem of bringing essential drugs for the ones who need it; 1. Calls upon the member states to reduce the power of pharmaceutical companies, through more transparency during the production of these essential drugs to enable governments to know the real price of all the medicines and permit better negotiations such as the current use Essential Medicines List system; 2. Supports the continuation of the MERCOSUR alliance and start implementing it in new developing countries, in order to be self-sufficient and less dependent of developed countries; 3. Endorses the creation of licensing systems that enable developing companies to produce effective and cost-efficient medicaments that are safe; 4. Urges to enable better trade of medicine between countries by lessening taxes, tariffs and obstructive policies; 5. Encourages the mapping of each country’s diseases and infections to better understand disease transmission, incidence, and prevalence rates in developing countries where healthcare workers are currently lacking this much-needed data; 6. Supports the creation of more rural area programs and projects that are less dependent on foreign workers to assist in the delivery of medications to communities that are currently hard to access;
7. Establishes aid to southern African countries to achieve a sustainable access to essential medicines by reaffirming its full support for the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development; 8. Recommends cooperation among countries through regional joint bulk procurement, to reduce costs of the essential drugs as for example within the Gulf Cooperation Council; 9. Reaffirms the need to establish a partnership between developed countries and African countries to help them develop medical facilities and pharmaceutical companies to bring affordable drugs to everyone; 10. Stresses the need to allocate funds for researchers, to permit them to go abroad and study the new and foreign medical techniques, in order to develop and adapt them in their own country; 11. Supports finding ways to integrate traditional medicine together with advanced medicine to suit different countries culture and social background; 12. Recognizes the need to implement medication campaigns in the rural areas in cooperation with NGOs in order to improve the access to medicines in such areas; 13. Encourages further negotiations with the World Trade Organization to change the patent law which hinders developing countries to produce their own medicines until the 20years patent has expired.