http://articles.economictimes.
Naren Karunakaran, ET Bureau, Mar 25, 2011, 08.16am IST
A few years ago, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, had a chance meeting with
Som Pal, former member of the Planning Commission and earlier minister of
state for agriculture, and was bowled over by his sage-like views on
developmental issues. The president promptly invited Som Pal to his blighted
country to suggest policy measures to get out of a developmental quagmire.
Som Pal travelled to Rwanda; he was hosted at the presidential palace and
allocated an entire office during two long stints.
Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land
and favourable climatic conditions. "A set of policy guidelines and an
action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame — Rwanda
could be food surplus in a short time," recalls Som Pal.
His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed
him, even attempting to buy water hand-pumps at $12,500 apiece. "Most
African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for
international support in dollars," laments Som Pal. "A complete nexus
between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at
work." Elements of this trend can be seen in India too.
Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the
story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much
celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) — an initiative
driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories,
respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5
million to AGRA.
"They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a
foothold into the continent," explains Som Pal. "Their large philanthropic
resources are being utilised to further the interests of business." In
countries with weak governance mechanisms, like in Africa, it becomes a lot
easier.
Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms),
sustainable agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel
uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives
across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent
policy wonks and scientists across the world.
For instance, the Gates Foundation's sheer clout is taking it, intentionally
or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy
intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies
that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in
the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education,
healthcare and agriculture.
The $23.1-million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the
world's largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend.
Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always
suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent
times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have
tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from
organics and tech-driven agriculture.
The Gates Foundation's insistence that its investments and grants ought to
be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. The question is
asked: how can it be a 'passive investor' in companies such as Monsanto when
its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? "Doubts about his
(Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are
beginning to cloud my thinking," concedes Mira Shiva, a public health
activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and
March 22, went unanswered.
In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the
US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it
'Monsanto in Gates' clothing'.
He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying
the ground for a conventional breeding programme — labs, experiment
stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points
out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone
into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went
into promoting and developing GM seeds.
GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and
biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions
like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR).
It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of
corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business
models of those very companies. Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently
representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundation's announcement of
the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by
Bill Gates. "The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM
rice is too well known," she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been
created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now
breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a
membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the
import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year.
Food First is concerned that US agencies, acting in tandem with MNCs, are
gaining muscle by the day. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security Act - a
legislation that seeks to tie foreign aid to GMOs - is often cited. Or, that
the newly appointed head of USAID is a former Gates Foundation employee.
A set of powerful voices — in business and in philanthropy — are beginning
to talk of a new GM-led green revolution despite the ravages of the previous
green revolution techniques, which were grounded in similar principles, in
India. In the Punjab, Haryana and western UP belt, soils are degraded, and
yields and groundwater levels are plunging, causing deep socio-economic
challenges.
The onslaught continues despite numerous studies indicating that GM crops
are no panacea. A few years ago, the International Assessment of
Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) — a
multi-stakeholder consultation that lasted three years, and involved 900
experts from 110 countries — concluded GM crops are no solution to the
world's food security challenges.
Second Only to the US
Concerns aired by agriculturists are finding an echo in another arena in
which philanthropic capital, in recent years, has catalysed remarkable
progress: healthcare.
It has delivered results in access to medicines, research in neglected and
tropical diseases, development and distribution of vaccines to low-income
countries, maternal, neonatal and child health, and nutrition.
The Gates Foundation and its partners have re-invigorated health issues and
given them a global profile like never before. Since 1994, the foundation
has invested over $13 billion in healthcare alone, representing 60% of its
giving to date.
In public health, other than the US government, there is no donor as
influential as the Gates Foundation. It has emerged as the second largest
donor to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This can be seen both ways:
donor money has infused life into a nearly bankrupt entity, but it is also
causing much consternation.
Effects of the structural changes being pushed by the new interests will be
seen years or decades down the line.
"The very mandate and constitution of the WHO is being undermined," says KM
Gopakumar, legal advisor and senior researcher of the Third World Network in
India.
Speaking to the media in Bangalore this week, Warren Buffett, who has
committed most of his $50 billion wealth to the Gates Foundation, admitted
it takes a long time to see the full results of philanthropic work.
While it is conceded that it would be downright impudent to look a gift
horse in the mouth, the concentration of power in the hands of new
philanthro-capitalists is causing alarm; especially on issues around equity
and social justice, on the accountability of donors and its impact, maybe
unintended, on global institutions and processes.
"The rapid demise of public sector policy-making in key areas of public
health, and the reliance on the Gates family and its staff, is impoverishing
debate over public health priorities," says James Love, director, Knowledge
Economy International (KEI), a US-based not-for-profit that seeks better
outcomes to the management of knowledge resources. It is borne out by
occasional outbursts from people within the system.
Concentration of Power
Some time ago, the head of WHO's malaria research revealed that the
increasing dominance of the Gates Foundation was stifling diversity of views
among scientists and that it could seriously impede the policy-making
function of the world body. He was dismayed by the foundation's
decision-making process: "A closed, internal process.accountable to none
other than itself".
More recently, in January 2011, the Peoples Health Movement, a grassroots
campaign for health for all, wrote to members of the WHO's executive board,
calling attention to a number of issues. This included innovation,
intellectual property rights (IPR), millennium development goals, and also
the future of financing WHO, especially the unhealthy trend of donor money
increasing in proportion to that of contributions from member states.
WHO's recent over-reliance on medicines, diagnostics and other technological
fixes is being criticised. "Allocations to the social determinants of health
have shrunk greatly," says Mira Shiva. "Water, food, sanitation and other
social circumstances have a greater play on the health of the poor." Shiva
has been an ardent proponent for the rational use of medicines.
In contrast, a humungous push on vaccines is underway. The Gates Foundation,
for example, has allocated $10 billion to this field and describes this as
the decade of vaccines. However, the GAVI Alliance, and some of the
mechanisms it has fostered, is now under fire.
One such mechanism is the Advance Market Commitments (AMC), inspired and
supported by the Gates Foundation. The AMC seeks to provide pharma companies
a captive market for 10 years, provided they agree to develop and supply
vaccines to developing countries, in millions of doses, at a deep discount.
The pilot AMC of $1.5 billion, funded by the Gates Foundation and G7
countries, for pneumococcal diseases, which kills almost a million children
annually, pays $3.50 per dose to the companies in the mechanism
(GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer-Wyeth, among others). Recipient countries make a
small co-payment. However, instead of developing new vaccines, the AMC
brought in vaccines already developed by big pharma, for which costs had
been recovered substantially from sales in western markets.
Donald W Light, a distinguished academic and visiting professor at Stanford
University, was part of the AMC process, but found himself out of it when
his views crossed that of big pharma. Light often dubs it the "advance
procurement commitment" for its overwhelming bias towards big pharma and
profits. "GAVI is basically setting the markets for big pharma," says Leena
Menghaney, campaign co-ordinator (India), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a
medical humanitarian organisation that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
The GAVI Alliance is already in a deep funding crisis. It is expected to
scour for $4.1 billion this year, primarily because of action skewed in
favour of big pharma. "Leaders of donor nations and GAVI board members
should sit with the chairman of
Pfizer<http://economictimes.
GSK to negotiate a new price near $2," says Light. "In the longer run,
they should negotiate licensing, technology transfer and other ways to
foster price-competition from other low-cost producers."
The suggestion is indeed relevant for the AMC, which disregards the immense
potential of small pharma companies in developing countries to bring cheaper
vaccines to the world. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India participates
in the AMC, but when it requested funding support during its R&D process for
a vaccine, it was turned down. Light is in favour of companies in the Serum
Institute mould.
Institutional Influence
The Gates influence and stranglehold on global institutions and mechanisms
in healthcare are quite evident. It doesn't stop here. Numerous proposals
for a 'Medical R&D Treaty' as a more egalitarian alternative to the existing
one, which links R&D costs to product prices, has been systematically
snuffed out.
The treaty seeks to place global, and country-specific obligations, on funding medical R&D. Each country is expected to extend support on the basis of its national income. "It's regrettable that the Gates Foundation opposes discussions at the WHO on a possible treaty on medical R&D," says James Love. "An initiative that can create new global sustainability standards, promote access to knowledge, and usher much-needed transparency and ethical norms." At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gates said: "I don't know about this treaty. I don't have a position on this."
Interestingly, while large organisations such as the WHO bare a tendency to capitulate easily to pressure, smaller, newer outfits show more spunk. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a product development partnership, which also seeks funds from the Gates Foundation, has clear firewalls in place.
"We limit funds from a single donor to not more than 25% of our total requirement," says Bernard Pecoul, executive director, DNDi, which is seeking to raise euro 274 million by 2014. The Gates Foundation has committed around $40 million to DNDi. It demanded a board position, but DNDi refused.
But such instances of refusing to bow to big philanthropy are rare. "It's a crisis of accountability today," says Shiva. "It's no more accountability of corporations or philanthropists alone; the government too has a lot to answer."
Naren Karunakaran, ET Bureau, Mar 25, 2011, 08.16am IST
A few years ago, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, had a chance meeting with
Som Pal, former member of the Planning Commission and earlier minister of
state for agriculture, and was bowled over by his sage-like views on
developmental issues. The president promptly invited Som Pal to his blighted
country to suggest policy measures to get out of a developmental quagmire.
Som Pal travelled to Rwanda; he was hosted at the presidential palace and
allocated an entire office during two long stints.
Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land
and favourable climatic conditions. "A set of policy guidelines and an
action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame — Rwanda
could be food surplus in a short time," recalls Som Pal.
His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed
him, even attempting to buy water hand-pumps at $12,500 apiece. "Most
African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for
international support in dollars," laments Som Pal. "A complete nexus
between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at
work." Elements of this trend can be seen in India too.
Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the
story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much
celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) — an initiative
driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories,
respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5
million to AGRA.
"They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a
foothold into the continent," explains Som Pal. "Their large philanthropic
resources are being utilised to further the interests of business." In
countries with weak governance mechanisms, like in Africa, it becomes a lot
easier.
Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms),
sustainable agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel
uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives
across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent
policy wonks and scientists across the world.
For instance, the Gates Foundation's sheer clout is taking it, intentionally
or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy
intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies
that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in
the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education,
healthcare and agriculture.
The $23.1-million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the
world's largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend.
Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always
suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent
times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have
tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from
organics and tech-driven agriculture.
The Gates Foundation's insistence that its investments and grants ought to
be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. The question is
asked: how can it be a 'passive investor' in companies such as Monsanto when
its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? "Doubts about his
(Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are
beginning to cloud my thinking," concedes Mira Shiva, a public health
activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and
March 22, went unanswered.
In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the
US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it
'Monsanto in Gates' clothing'.
He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying
the ground for a conventional breeding programme — labs, experiment
stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points
out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone
into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went
into promoting and developing GM seeds.
GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and
biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions
like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR).
It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of
corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business
models of those very companies. Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently
representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundation's announcement of
the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by
Bill Gates. "The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM
rice is too well known," she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been
created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now
breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a
membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the
import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year.
Food First is concerned that US agencies, acting in tandem with MNCs, are
gaining muscle by the day. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security Act - a
legislation that seeks to tie foreign aid to GMOs - is often cited. Or, that
the newly appointed head of USAID is a former Gates Foundation employee.
A set of powerful voices — in business and in philanthropy — are beginning
to talk of a new GM-led green revolution despite the ravages of the previous
green revolution techniques, which were grounded in similar principles, in
India. In the Punjab, Haryana and western UP belt, soils are degraded, and
yields and groundwater levels are plunging, causing deep socio-economic
challenges.
The onslaught continues despite numerous studies indicating that GM crops
are no panacea. A few years ago, the International Assessment of
Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) — a
multi-stakeholder consultation that lasted three years, and involved 900
experts from 110 countries — concluded GM crops are no solution to the
world's food security challenges.
Second Only to the US
Concerns aired by agriculturists are finding an echo in another arena in
which philanthropic capital, in recent years, has catalysed remarkable
progress: healthcare.
It has delivered results in access to medicines, research in neglected and
tropical diseases, development and distribution of vaccines to low-income
countries, maternal, neonatal and child health, and nutrition.
The Gates Foundation and its partners have re-invigorated health issues and
given them a global profile like never before. Since 1994, the foundation
has invested over $13 billion in healthcare alone, representing 60% of its
giving to date.
In public health, other than the US government, there is no donor as
influential as the Gates Foundation. It has emerged as the second largest
donor to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This can be seen both ways:
donor money has infused life into a nearly bankrupt entity, but it is also
causing much consternation.
Effects of the structural changes being pushed by the new interests will be
seen years or decades down the line.
"The very mandate and constitution of the WHO is being undermined," says KM
Gopakumar, legal advisor and senior researcher of the Third World Network in
India.
Speaking to the media in Bangalore this week, Warren Buffett, who has
committed most of his $50 billion wealth to the Gates Foundation, admitted
it takes a long time to see the full results of philanthropic work.
While it is conceded that it would be downright impudent to look a gift
horse in the mouth, the concentration of power in the hands of new
philanthro-capitalists is causing alarm; especially on issues around equity
and social justice, on the accountability of donors and its impact, maybe
unintended, on global institutions and processes.
"The rapid demise of public sector policy-making in key areas of public
health, and the reliance on the Gates family and its staff, is impoverishing
debate over public health priorities," says James Love, director, Knowledge
Economy International (KEI), a US-based not-for-profit that seeks better
outcomes to the management of knowledge resources. It is borne out by
occasional outbursts from people within the system.
Concentration of Power
Some time ago, the head of WHO's malaria research revealed that the
increasing dominance of the Gates Foundation was stifling diversity of views
among scientists and that it could seriously impede the policy-making
function of the world body. He was dismayed by the foundation's
decision-making process: "A closed, internal process.accountable to none
other than itself".
More recently, in January 2011, the Peoples Health Movement, a grassroots
campaign for health for all, wrote to members of the WHO's executive board,
calling attention to a number of issues. This included innovation,
intellectual property rights (IPR), millennium development goals, and also
the future of financing WHO, especially the unhealthy trend of donor money
increasing in proportion to that of contributions from member states.
WHO's recent over-reliance on medicines, diagnostics and other technological
fixes is being criticised. "Allocations to the social determinants of health
have shrunk greatly," says Mira Shiva. "Water, food, sanitation and other
social circumstances have a greater play on the health of the poor." Shiva
has been an ardent proponent for the rational use of medicines.
In contrast, a humungous push on vaccines is underway. The Gates Foundation,
for example, has allocated $10 billion to this field and describes this as
the decade of vaccines. However, the GAVI Alliance, and some of the
mechanisms it has fostered, is now under fire.
One such mechanism is the Advance Market Commitments (AMC), inspired and
supported by the Gates Foundation. The AMC seeks to provide pharma companies
a captive market for 10 years, provided they agree to develop and supply
vaccines to developing countries, in millions of doses, at a deep discount.
The pilot AMC of $1.5 billion, funded by the Gates Foundation and G7
countries, for pneumococcal diseases, which kills almost a million children
annually, pays $3.50 per dose to the companies in the mechanism
(GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer-Wyeth, among others). Recipient countries make a
small co-payment. However, instead of developing new vaccines, the AMC
brought in vaccines already developed by big pharma, for which costs had
been recovered substantially from sales in western markets.
Donald W Light, a distinguished academic and visiting professor at Stanford
University, was part of the AMC process, but found himself out of it when
his views crossed that of big pharma. Light often dubs it the "advance
procurement commitment" for its overwhelming bias towards big pharma and
profits. "GAVI is basically setting the markets for big pharma," says Leena
Menghaney, campaign co-ordinator (India), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a
medical humanitarian organisation that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
The GAVI Alliance is already in a deep funding crisis. It is expected to
scour for $4.1 billion this year, primarily because of action skewed in
favour of big pharma. "Leaders of donor nations and GAVI board members
should sit with the chairman of
Pfizer<http://economictimes.
GSK to negotiate a new price near $2," says Light. "In the longer run,
they should negotiate licensing, technology transfer and other ways to
foster price-competition from other low-cost producers."
The suggestion is indeed relevant for the AMC, which disregards the immense
potential of small pharma companies in developing countries to bring cheaper
vaccines to the world. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India participates
in the AMC, but when it requested funding support during its R&D process for
a vaccine, it was turned down. Light is in favour of companies in the Serum
Institute mould.
Institutional Influence
The Gates influence and stranglehold on global institutions and mechanisms
in healthcare are quite evident. It doesn't stop here. Numerous proposals
for a 'Medical R&D Treaty' as a more egalitarian alternative to the existing
one, which links R&D costs to product prices, has been systematically
snuffed out.
The treaty seeks to place global, and country-specific obligations, on funding medical R&D. Each country is expected to extend support on the basis of its national income. "It's regrettable that the Gates Foundation opposes discussions at the WHO on a possible treaty on medical R&D," says James Love. "An initiative that can create new global sustainability standards, promote access to knowledge, and usher much-needed transparency and ethical norms." At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gates said: "I don't know about this treaty. I don't have a position on this."
Interestingly, while large organisations such as the WHO bare a tendency to capitulate easily to pressure, smaller, newer outfits show more spunk. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a product development partnership, which also seeks funds from the Gates Foundation, has clear firewalls in place.
"We limit funds from a single donor to not more than 25% of our total requirement," says Bernard Pecoul, executive director, DNDi, which is seeking to raise euro 274 million by 2014. The Gates Foundation has committed around $40 million to DNDi. It demanded a board position, but DNDi refused.
But such instances of refusing to bow to big philanthropy are rare. "It's a crisis of accountability today," says Shiva. "It's no more accountability of corporations or philanthropists alone; the government too has a lot to answer."
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