Jomo Kwame Sundaram’s Blog

At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a catastrophic moral failure. Vaccine apartheid The EU, US, UK, Switzerland, Canada and their allies continue to block the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to enable greatly increased, affordable supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, tests and equipment. Meanwhile, 6.4…

Globalisation’s beginnings are symbolised by Ferdinand Magellan’s near circumnavigation of the world half a millennium ago. But its history is not simply of connection and trade, but also of intolerance, exploitation, slavery, violence, aggression and genocide. Magalhães, conquistador The Philippines today struggles with this history. Some Filipinos highlight the warm native reception extended to Magellan’s fleet and the first Catholic mass, reminiscent of American Thanksgiving mythology. For others, native resistance to conquistador aggression, captured by Danilo Madrid Gerona’s biography of Magellan, is more memorable.\ In 1494CE, Pope Alexander VI, now of Borgias TV series infamy, united the Iberian Catholic kings…

Developing country governments are being wrongly advised to use their modest fiscal resources to pay down accumulated debt instead of strengthening pandemic relief and recovery. Thus, debt phobia risks deepening and extending COVID-19 recessions by prioritising buybacks. Pandemic debt mounting Nearly half (44%) of low-income countries were already debt-distressed or at high risk even before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020. Limited fiscal space has constrained developing countries’ relief and recovery measures, making them far more modest than those of developed countries. Nevertheless, their government debt ratios rose faster in 2020. Many developing countries have taken on more…

After being undermined by decades of financial liberalisation, developing countries now are not only victims of vaccine imperialism, but also cannot count on much financial support as their COVID-19 recessions drag on due to global vaccine apartheid. Financialisation undermined South Developing countries have long been pressured to liberalise finance by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The international financial institutions claimed this would bring net capital inflows. This was supposed to reduce foreign exchange constraints to accelerating growth, creating “a rosy scenario, indeed”. Globalisation’s claim naively expects “more birds to fly into, rather than out of an open birdcage”. Instead, financial globalisation…

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is adversely impacting most developing countries disproportionately, especially the United Nations’ least developed countries (LDCs) and the World Bank’s low-income countries (LICs). Years of implementing neoliberal policy conditionalities and advice have made most developing countries much more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic by undermining their health systems and fiscal capacities to respond adequately. Less taxes Four decades of ‘neoliberal’ policy influence has resulted in a ‘race to the bottom’ to cut direct taxes, particularly corporate tax rates, ostensibly to promote investments and spur growth. But most LDCs and LICs were left high and dry as foreign direct…

Vaccine developers’ refusal to share publicly funded vaccine research findings is stalling broader, affordable vaccinations which would more rapidly contain COVID-19 contagion. The pandemic had infected at least 109 million people worldwide, causing over 2.4 million deaths as of mid-February. Avoidable delays in preventive vaccination are imposing terrible burdens on the world economy and human welfare, with economic disruption demanding more relief and recovery measures. They have cost US$28 trillion in lost output globally, with developed countries contracting by 7% in 2020. Avoidable vaccination delays National capacities to cope with the pandemic have been largely determined by means and power. Thus, access to…

Refusal to temporarily suspend several World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) provisions to enable much faster and broader progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be grounds for International Criminal Court prosecution for genocide. Making life-saving vaccines, medicines and equipment available, freely or affordably, has been crucial for containing the spread of many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, insisted that it remain patent free. Asked who owned the patent 65 years ago, he replied, “The people I would say. There is no patent. You might as well ask, could…

Access to COVID-19 vaccines for many developing countries and most of their people will have to wait as the powerful and better off secure earlier access regardless of need or urgency. More profits, by manufacturing scarcity, will surely cause even more loss of both lives and livelihoods. Good intentions not enough To induce private efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, the WHO initiated COVAX to ensure more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. However, interest by vaccine companies has been limited, while some governments – especially from better-off upper middle-income countries – pursue other options. COVAX has been co-led with GAVI, the Vaccine…

Current development fads fetishize data, ostensibly for ‘evidence-based policy-making’: if not measured, it will not matter. So, forget about getting financial resources for your work, programmes and projects, no matter how beneficial, significant or desperately needed. Measure for measure Agencies, funds, programmes and others lobby and fight for attention by showcasing their own policy agendas, ostensible achievements and potential. Many believe that the more indicators they get endorsed by the ‘international community’, the more financial support they can expect to secure. Collecting enough national data to properly monitor progress on the Sustainable Development Goals is expensive. Data collection costs, typically borne by…

Covid-19 infection and death rates in the Western world and many developing countries in Asia and Latin America have long overtaken East Asia since the second quarter of 2020. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering prevailing Western accounts of the Asian financial crises, there have been no serious efforts to draw policy lessons from East Asian contagion containment. Lockdowns necessary? Although most East Asian economies have successfully contained the pandemic without nationwide ‘stay in shelter lockdowns’, many governments have seen such measures as necessary. But lockdowns are blunt measures, with inevitable adverse consequences, especially for businesses and employment. Many countries have thus imposed lockdowns,…