Jan 18, 2010 | Global Public Health, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°11
On October 29th, 2010, many spokespeople for the humanitarian agencies of the United Nations have reaffirmed their worries regarding the fragile situation of millions of displaced Pakistanis. These alarming statements emphasize the lack of shelter and food with the approach of winter, three months after the downfall of torrential rain that have ravaged Pakistan. Since the 26th of July 2010, the massive floods have in effect reached almost a fifth of the country, from the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – located in the Northwest – all the way to the Southern region of Sindh. For now, the human death toll has risen to nearly 1800 deaths and around 14 million victims. According to the material damages, it can be estimated that 43 million dollars from the agriculture sector – crucial to the national economy – has been deeply affected. According to U.N. officials, this could be the worst catastrophe in the history of Pakistan. Henceforth, many analysts have brought up the uncertain future of a destabilized State that will intensify the internal conflict of opposition to the authorities by Islamist groups.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In the first place, it must be emphasized that Pakistan – the 6th most populated country in the world – is particularly vulnerable to natural risks, above all seismic and hydrological. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many significant floods have struck this territory equally vulnerable to earthquakes. Recall for example the 6 million people that were affected – including more than 1300 deaths – by the strong rains accompanying the monsoon of the winter of 1992. The Emergency Events Database of the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters has accounted for dozens of similar phenomena since 1900. For now, the rising numbers as well as the socio-economic costs tied to this type of disaster appear to have much greater of an impact than large earthquakes as well as incurring more deaths.
Then, it is important to recall certain historical precedents establishing a structural link between the management of catastrophes and the political situation. In this respect, the cyclone of Bhola that hit Eastern Pakistan – currently Bangladesh – in November 1970 seemed to reveal this interdependence. The passivity of the Federal Government had them stigmatized by the separatist opposition – The Awami League – allowing them at the last moment to win the provincial elections a month later and to proclaim the Bengali secession. If the success of this secession had a lot to do with the Indian involvement in the conflict, it was not less so than this natural disaster that was strongly exploited by political actors. Finally, the recent earthquake of October 2005 – which occurred in the disputed region of Kashmir – has equally evoked a powerful transnational mobilization. However, there are many tensions due to those opposed to Western non-governmental organizations and the Pakistani army critical of their supervision, minimize their assistance. Ultimately, the national agency, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority that had been put in place by the authorities to centralize aid flows, were accused of corruption and massive embezzlement.
Theoretical framework
1. Internationalization of the Catastrophe. It is important to recall here that disaster is inscribed in a system of historical, political and strategic pressures. With this logic, the international dynamics of humanitarian intervention must be analyzed with a perspective to these regional issues.
2. Concurrent Aid Management. Obviously, there are many divides that pervade the space of the aid operators and determine the distribution of scarce resources and its terms. In other words, the dispersion of strategies – and of objectives – transforms aid into an object of competition, extending diplomatically to the heart of the Pakistani State.
Analysis
Clearly, in the first place, certain characteristics of this catastrophe present a slow process – contrary to the tsunami of 2004 or the Haitian earthquake – where the impact manifested in the mid-term. In this instance, the damages incurred by the floods are decreased by the economic crisis that has clamped down on this country that has recently called to the International Monetary Fund. Emphasized by the four million hectares of arable land that were submerged, Pakistan is restricted to the importation of foodstuffs to attempt to prevent a probable soaring in prices. And yet, this leaves the prediction of a rise in social tensions in a State already profoundly divided by ethnic conflicts – tied to a contested centralization – religious and overall political. In this regard, it is important to recall the specific role of military that took power from 1999 to 2008 with General Musharraf, and their ambivalent relations to the current civil government. In addition to this view, the national authorities – traditionally allied with the United States – have been facing for a decade an insurrection of armed groups tied to the Afghan Taliban. This complex configuration of opposing interests has been re-transcribed in the post-disaster crisis. Additionally, the management of the disaster seems to be a way of changing the existing relationships of power, for both local and international actors.
Behind the consensual rhetoric of the global solidarity demonstrates, in effect, a true catastrophe of diplomacy formed by the strategic objectives of donors. To this end, it must be mentioned that American aid has risen to almost a half-million dollars. If this commitment could permit the ameliorating of the image of Washington – marred by the mistakes in the war in Afghanistan – they could sustain overall a traditional and indispensible ally for their regional establishment. This imperative of national security, according to the expression of Senator John Kerry, has been confirmed by the recent announcement of military assistance of two million dollars in five years. In this same logic, the considerable mobilization of the Muslim world can hardly be reduced to a simple expression of mutual aid. Additionally, the Saudi contributions – 365 million dollars – and Iranian – 100 million – evokes their influence as an approach of soft power aiming to affirm their presence in the disaster-struck region. In the same manner, their Chinese neighbors, emergent donors, have promised nearly 250 million the 23rd of September 2010. In addition, the entanglement of symbolic and political dimensions are expressed in the refusal of the Pakistani Government to accept direct aid from its Indian rival.
Remarking equally on the process of the appeal of the United Nations – in requesting from this point forward 1.9 million dollars – have not assembled to this day, but 39% of the solicited sum. After the world crisis, the forms of financing allowed the explanation of this shortcoming: Muslim countries and China seemed to give priority to bilateral aid, while the Western donors do not trust them and attribute all of their funds to the United Nations System, to non-governmental organizations, or also to the International Movement of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement. For now, the Pakistani authorities have recently attempted to affirm their leadership on the reconstruction plan in refusing the direct control of projects by external actors. This demand for control of aid seems to be vital for a weakened government, which was very criticized for its inefficiency, notably for their regional officials. Moreover, according to certain analysts, the strong mobilization of the army – 60,000 soldiers were deployed at the end of August – has eclipsed civil power and has made possible a coup d’état similar to that of 1999. Finally, other commentators have emphasized the growing role of Islamist organizations – such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa or Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat – in the assistance, likely to accentuate the delegitimizing of a regime allied with Americans. This extreme fragility of the Pakistani state, especially on their borders, reinforces the necessity of international aid where the donor’s local mastery is not crucial.
References
Jaffrelot Christophe (Éd.), Le Pakistan, carrefour de tensions régionales, Bruxelles, Complexe, 2002.
OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), FTS (Financial Tracking Service), Table A: List of All Commitments/Contributions and Pledges as of 02 November 2010, 2 novembre 2010, consulté sur le site : http://www.reliefweb.int/fts [2 novembre 2010].
Questions internationales, « Les catastrophes naturelles », (19), mai-juin 2006.
Site internet de l’agence pakistanaise NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) : http://www.ndma.gov.pk/.
Dec 26, 2009 | International migrations, Multilaterism, Passage au crible (English)
By Catherine Wihtol de Wenden
Passage au crible n°10
During the first week of November 2009, the 3rd Global Forum on Migration and development took place in Athens, after Brussels in 2007 and Manila in 2008, on the same topic. It means a project of World Governance of Migration, associating departure and arrival countries, IGOs, NGOs, associations, trade unions, employers and experts.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In 1994, the World Conference of Cairo on Population, for the first time, mentioned migrations as a topic of international interest (chapter 10). Ten years later, following the GMG, Kofi Annan, then General Secretary of the United Nations, decided to support this initiative with the creation of a High Level Dialogue which took place in New York in 2006 and which gave birth to the annual Forums on Migration and Development. The analysis started from the discrepancies of intergovernmental policies of welcome countries only, which are quite exclusively focused on border controls and give birth to multiple perverse and unexpected effects deeply challenging human rights.
In 2004, some international organisations (the Geneva Migration Group, then the Global Migration Group, GMG) including the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), the ILO (International Labour Organisation), the IOM (International Organisation for Migrations) all settled in Geneva proposed a new multilateral mechanism of governance aiming at developing a common platform on migration policies. The idea was to secure mobility at world level and to change migration into a development factor for welcome and departure countries and for migrants as well, according to a win, win, win approach.
Theoretical framework
This process is double: on one hand, it defines migrations as a Global Public Good, a stake of world governance. One the other hand, it promotes multilateralism as a method of negotiation between actors with opposed interests.
1. Migrations, a Global Public Good
The expert’s reports have shown that mobility has become a core factor of Human development. In order to reduce inequalities at world scale, one should politically secure mobility in order to turn it into a Global Public Good.
2. Multilateralism, a method
Inside the United Nations, the compromise consisted, in 2006, in associating migration and development, two notions which became the title and the content of the following World Forums. Three major ideas have arisen: 1) A dialogue on migrations and development is possible if there is an exchange between contradictory positions. 2) It is necessary to link migration with development without only focusing on the economic effects of remittances but thanks to granting an interest on innovation and on the freedom brought by mobility. 3) It is urgent to focus on operational measures which allow managing migrations with a pro-active win win win approach for welcome, departure countries and for migrants as well. Multilateralism also offers to the various protagonists the opportunity to emphasize the transnational character of migration flows and migrant’s behaviours which are following. It also underlines the economic, family, social and cultural networks. This diplomacy of migrations overcomes the security approach consisting in reducing migrations to border crossing, border control and attempts to State sovereignty.
Analysis
The three Forums respectively held in Brussels, Manila and Athens made separate meetings for immigration and emigration States and civil society (1000 participants in Athens: migrants associations, human rights associations, experts, trade unions, employers, development associations). The interests of civil society are themselves somewhat dispersed and controversial. So, most associations and emigration countries have focused their mobilisation around the signature by western immigration countries of the UN Convention of 1990. This treaty, which also defines irregular migrant’s rights, is focused on the Rights of all Migrant Workers and their Families. It has entered into application in 2003, and it also includes specific articles on international cooperation. But it is nowadays a failure, because it has been signed by only 42 States, all southern ones. Moreover, the trade unions consider the Forum as a parallel diplomacy, the members of the so called civil society being marginalised and co-opted. Finally, according to them, the discussions between Diasporas associations and NGOs were unclear and these processes were organised outside the United Nations.
However, big organisations as UNHCR, IOM, ICMC (International Catholic Migrants Committee), ILO have a positive approach of the exercise, putting the emphasis on a work in progress: while the Brussels Forum was focusing on the accuracy of the human rights approach, the Manila Forum dedicated itself on human rights practices and the Athens Forum on development in origin and arrival countries. The main proposals of Athens are following: 1) Integrating migration among poverty reduction strategies. 2) Framing a better coherence and coordination between migration and development at national policies scale. 3) Collecting data in countries of origin and arrival on circular migrations. 4) Studying migration profiles, return and reintegration experiences including Diasporas and the impact of the crisis. 5) Comparing the best practices of integration and social protection. 6) Lowering remittances costs, studying their impact on the well being of populations in situ. 7) Analysing the role of climate change on migration. 8) Adopting a global view on all these points in a perspective of better institutional coherence.
Which future for the Forum? The actors of civil society have agreed to avoid the policy of the empty chair. The future Forum, which will take place in Mexico in 2010 aims at creating a space of global debate on migrant’s rights with more legitimacy and credibility. It also proposes to modernise the concepts – namely those defining departure, welcome and transit countries – more and more blurred, taking the example of Mexico, a country which has the three features. The symbolic process is important and the inclusion of the United Nations (and so UNHCR) is considered as essential to give more weight to such an initiative. A world governance of migrations is conditioned by such an agenda.
References
HDP (Human Development Program), Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, 2009.
ICRMW, International Steering Committee for the Campaign for Ratification of the Migrants rights Convention, Guide on Ratification. International Convention of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, Geneva, April 2009.
Wihtol de Wenden Catherine, La Globalisation humaine. Paris, PUF, 2009.
Dec 19, 2009 | environment, Global Public Goods, Passage au crible (English)
By Simon Uzenat
Passage au crible n°9
Between 7th and 19th December 2009, Copenhagen was the scene of the 15th CP (Conference of the Parties) under the aegis of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The aim was to adopt an internationally binding judicial instrument in order to 1) reduce global production of greenhouse gases (GHG) and 2) adapt the models of development to the foreseeable consequences of climate change. The failure of this summit should not, however, occult the emergence of original structures of governance of Global Public Goods.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The international response to climate change took the shape of the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992. This convention established the institutional framework for stabilizing the concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere. In December 1997, at the 3rd CP In Kyoto, the delegates agreed upon a protocol which committed the industrialized countries – mentioned in Annex 1 – to reducing, by 2012, their global emissions of GHG by an average of 5.2%, below their 1990 levels. The Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16th February 2005 and arrives at its term on 31st December 2012, without, as yet, being ratified by the greatest per capita GHG emitting power, the United States.
In December 2008, at Poznan, during the 14th CP, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC declared that 50% to 80% of concrete action aiming to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and nearly 100% of the measures of adaptation to the consequences of climate change are conducted at an infra-state level. During the September 2009 Climate Week, Ben Kimoon, Secretary General of the UNO, underlined the role of sub-national entities. For their part, the leaders of the IPCC (Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change) insist on the territorial disparities which climate change brings about. According to their work, coastal regions, small islands and, more generally, the LDC (Less Developed Countries) will suffer 80% of the GHG-caused damage for which the rich countries are nevertheless 80% responsible.
Like other peripheral actors of the negotiations, the regions have come together in more or less specialized transnational networks. The foremost of these, nrg4SD (Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development), saw the light of day at the millennium summit at Johannesburg in 2002 and models the organization of its events on the UNFCCC calendar. It adopted a first declaration on climate change in 2005 in Montreal and was then strongly involved in the 14th CP at Poznan. Following the same principles, the FOGAR (FOrum of Global Associations of Regions) was created in Marseille in 2007.
Unlike other non-state actors, the regions have a specific status. In international conferences, Belgian provinces, German Länder, or, to a lesser extent, Spanish provinces have their place within their national delegations. They can therefore directly submit amendments to the Secretariat of the UNFCCC and thus contribute to the different stages of the negotiations. In this respect, the networks of regions – considered as NGOs by the UNO and, as such, having the status of observers – benefit indirectly and partially from the relational power of certain of their members.
Theoretical framework
The implication of regions in international negotiations on climate change brings two problematics to the heart of the globalization process.
1. Non-state diplomacy. A great number of policies defined and implemented on a regional level – notwithstanding the nature of the relationship between the central State and the local authorities – remain closely linked to the issue of climate change (transport, habitat, energy…). They thus contribute to the transformation of the nature of the relationship between the two levels of governance, notably regarding the participation at a local level in international negotiations. In this instance, the central role played by the European Union in the recognition of the right of local authorities to act on the international scene, especially through the funds it deploys, should be underlined. Moreover, this non-state diplomacy takes a syncretic form which combines the range of actions specific to NGOs, transnational firms and the state.
2. Global Public Goods. As an instance of pure Global Public Goods, the climate represents one of the major issues of a global governance currently under construction. Global problems, such as they are perceived today, can no longer be settled by the sole route of inter-state cooperation. On the contrary, they call for the coordination of decentralized and mostly non-state actions. Paradoxically, this approach enables the re-legitimization of public intervention on an international scale, while demonstrating the necessity of going beyond the inter-governmental framework.
Analysis
The elaboration, definition and implementation of public environmental policies now involve all infra-state levels, with the regions at the forefront. As early as 1995, in her article dealing with the diffusion of the authority of the state, Susan Strange called for research into the issue of the diffusion of the power of the central state towards sub-state entities. At the same time, the retreat of state power, of its means of regulation and intervention accelerated. Indeed, they often precede the re-composition of the governmental scene by lowering the costs of entry for previously marginalized actors. From a Weber-inspired point of view, the state is then lead to decentralize and externalize certain of its operational policies, while organizing a re-distribution of decision-making. However, as a consequence, these dynamics contribute to autonomizing and weakening international organizations. The intrusion of new players constitutes for these organizations the opportunity to diversify their means of intermediation. However, this also threatens their claim to incarnate global governance.
Nevertheless, the working of international networks of local authorities remains undermined by the inequalities and development differentials which characterize globalization. This observation is reinforced further each time the networks are joined by regions from the South, which are weakly developed and often marginalized within countries which are themselves dominated.
The main resource of these infra-state entities consists in adapting themselves to the properties and restraints of globalization which are similar to those of transnational firms. This may take, for instance, the form of a search for economies of scale, a multiplication of public-private partnerships or global plans for communication. On 15th December, at the Copenhagen conference, 60 regional leaders thus participated in the Climate Leaders Summit 2009, directed by The Climate Group. In fact, this is an international club – founded under the aegis of Tony Blair – which brings together some fifty representatives of the largest global firms which are joined by some thirty regional governments, including California, Quebec, and Bavaria. In this respect, it must be observed that collective action is more probably inscribed in the logics of responsibility than in the classic logics of sovereignty. Such an emancipation from state heteronomy should not, however, be interpreted as the abandon or repression of the nation-state framework, the resonance of which was, on the contrary, demonstrated by the conclusions of Copenhagen. It should rather be apprehended within the framework of a vaster process of the dissemination of political authority.
References
Hocking Brian, “Patrolling the “Frontier” Globalization, Localization, and the “Actorness” of Non-Central Governments”, in: Francisco Aldecoa, Michael Keating (Eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, Regional and Federal Studies, 9 (1), Spring 1999, pp. 17-39.
Ollitrault Sylvie, Militer pour la planète, Rennes, PUR/Res Publica, 2008.
PNUD (Ed.), La Lutte contre le changement climatique : un impératif de solidarité humaine dans un monde divisé, Rapport mondial sur le développement humain 2007/2008. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/chapters/french/
Strange Susan, “The Defective State”, Daedalus, 124 (2), Spring 1995, pp. 55-74.
Dec 7, 2009 | International Finance, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Florent Bédécarrats
Passage au crible n°8
FOROLAC (Latin American and Caribbean Forum on Rural Finance) brings together roughly 350 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that together serve over 2.5 million users on the continent. In partnership with the Brazilian government, FOROLAC organized a seminar in December 2009 entitled Family farming, food sovereignty and rural financial systems: challenges and opportunities during crisis. Six hundred representatives of NGOs, social movements, governments, public banks, cooperatives and private companies participated in this international event.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Following the Second World War and the independence of numerous ex-colonies, many developing countries set up state-owned banks to finance development. However, many of these institutions proved to be dysfunctional, plagued by clientelistic practices. Governments were forced to recapitalize their development banks on a regular basis, ultimately exacerbating deficits and debt. During the 1982 financial crisis , the IFIs (International Financial Institutions) – resort lenders – had to bail out countries that had suspended payments, and imposed a series of conditionalities, including, notably, the liberalization of financial systems, reduction of public expenditure and the dismantling of state-owned development banks.
Microfinance was deployed to fill the void left by these structural adjustment policies. Its expansion was led by specialized organizations that gradually diversified their product mix, offering savings and insurance as well as international and national transfers. By the mid 1990s, international donors supporting the sector began to emphasize microfinance’s financial sustainability. They instructed MFIs not only to cover their costs, but generate profits in order to wean themselves from subsidies and attract private investors. This resulted in a growing number of microfinance NGOs transforming into private companies or even banks; at the same time, savings and credit cooperatives were marginalized.
This model was officially sanctioned in 2006 with the designation of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, and other international distinctions to microfinance. The symbolic aura that came with these distinctions, however, became a risk for the sector. Criticism mounted steadily, fed by abusive practices and staggering profits of select MFIs. In several Latin American countries, like Bolivia, Equator and Nicaragua, new socialist governments aggressively opposed microfinance and tried to nationalize institutions or replace them with state-owned banks.
Theoretical framework
1. Norms and regulation in microfinance. By claiming to be a development tool, at the same time it submits to market rules, microfinance blurs the frontier between social and business objectives and the public and private sectors. Although it has been championed by transnational players such as NGOs, donor agencies and investors, microfinance practices are intrinsically local. Like any retail financial activity, they are most often managed and strictly regulated at the national level. This hybridity fosters a governance model based on norms whose benchmarks generally defined within international fora.
2. Privatization of public development policies. Over the last three decades, the strategies of development actors have been influenced by the neo-liberal paradigm. Developing countries were incited by IFIs to limit their role in agricultural policies and financing to one of facilitator, in order to encourage free and competitive markets. Direct intervention of government agencies was deemed inefficient and minimized to the benefit of private operators such as NGOs and businesses.
Analysis
The recent financial and food crises are calling into question the current development paradigm. In agriculture, tensions stem less from insufficient world production than unequal distribution of value added. Indeed, commercial liberalization has put undercapitalized peasants (41% of the world’s population) in direct competition with agro-industry. Under these conditions, international prices settle in such a way that only 15% of the highest-yielding producers earn a profit. This asymmetry is leading to a pauperization of rural populations who represent 75% of the people malnourished. In other words, even as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) and World Bank are making agriculture once again a development priority, controversy is growing between those who would continue to invest in the agro-industrial model and those who would like to enhance the role of family farms. The Latin American socialist governments, who reached power with the support of grass-roots peasant movements, tend to support the second alternative.
Microfinance struggles to serve small farmers who face considerable hazards. Indeed, they often lack guarantees due to income flows that are too irregular and small to absorb the structurally high interest rates of MFIs. For all these reasons, microfinance often concentrates on urban areas, funding trade and service-based microenterprise set up by rural migrants. The market’s failure to foster rural development calls into question the image of microfinance put forth by the media. Moreover, it provides fodder for the discourse of socialist governments who regularly threaten to take control of MFIs or force them to drastically cut their interest rates.
The MFIs themselves strengthen corporative networks that pursue diverse strategies. For example, the most commercial among them make a point to establish their legal status and obtain support from international institutions or other significant economic actors. The more social and rural-focused organizations affiliated with FOROLAC aim to increase their credibility by forging partnerships with peasant organizations. To do this, they are developing rural and agricultural programs and looking to create alliances with state-owned development banks. In this regard, the seminar organized in Brazil by FOROLAC takes on considerable importance. Indeed, in a sector where relationships between practitioners and governments are often wrought with tension, the event established a precedent by bridge-building with Lula’s government in view of developing a referential model.
References
Guérin Isabelle, Lapenu Cécile, Doligez François (Éds.), La Microfinance est-elle socialement responsable ?, Revue Tiers-Monde, (197), Janv.-mars 2009.
Mazoyer Marcel, Roudart Laurence, La Fracture agricole et alimentaire mondiale : nourrir l’humanité aujourd’hui et demain, Paris, Éditions Universalis, 2006.
Trivelli Carolina, Venero Hildegardi, Banca de desarrollo para el agro: experiencias en curso en América Latina, Lima, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2007
Nov 30, 2009 | Global Public Health, Human safety, Passage au crible (English)
By Simon Uzenat
Passage au crible n°7
So far, the WHO (World Health Organization), has counted nearly 8.000 deaths – 650 of them in Europe – caused by the influenza A virus (HINI). For its part, France has recorded 750.000 medical consultations merely for the period from November 16 – 22, 2009, an increase of 72% relative to the preceding week. An acute respiratory illness, the HINI flu is different to the normal seasonal flu. Although the symptoms are similar to those of the seasonal virus, the more severe cases of HINI infection are treated with antiviral medicines such as Tamiflu. This new strain which includes genes of porcine, avian or human origin is propagated by coughing, sneezing and sputtering. Although it is extremely contagious, this ailment often remains benign, but its propagation has considerably accelerated throughout the entire world.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The epidemic began in Mexico in spring 2009 and immediately aroused anxiety. This is heightened by traces of several preceding flu epidemics which have been very persistent in the collective memory. Firstly, in 1918, the Spanish flu killed tens of millions at a time when population movements were less frequent than today. Mention should also be made of the global alerts concerning SARS in 2003 and avian flu in 2004. Moreover, while some countries were short of vaccines, the virus underwent genetic mutations, which only increased political tensions, social pressures and scientific quarrels. Finally, on June 11, 2009, the WHO decision to move up to alert level 6 – the maximal limit corresponding to the pandemic threshold – further reinforced this climate of anxiety or even panic.
Theoretical framework
The international strategy for fighting the first pandemic of the 21st century was based on two interdependent principles which underline “the immense difficulty of the nation-state to predict, organize and control the risk”, as the German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, put it.
1. Health as an instance of Global Public Goods. The process of the globalization of the world market economy has lead to the re-appraisal of the scale of the conditions of realization of health policies. Besides, the implication of an ever-increasing and more diversified number of actors intervening on an international scale demands a global approach to the issues, which until now had been limited to the national level.
2. Human safety. This notion refers to human rights, notably the right to live in a protected health environment. It implies challenging the territorialization of sovereignty by encouraging a double breach of the state’s sphere of action: a) from above, with the necessity of protecting the major global equilibria which require a global governance which is still under construction; b) from below, with attention granted to individuals rather than to states. Today the legitimization of human safety is to be seen in the reinforcement of judicial norms and the capability to enforce them. The role played by the WHO is to be approached within this framework, as should be the epistemic communities and more or less international networks of practitioners.
Analysis
This epidemic illustrates the process of globalization through the intensification of mobility, the acceleration of exchanges and the modernization of the means of communication. Marc Barthélemy, a researcher at the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), has thus estimated that air transport dictates the rhythm of propagation of the illness. More generally, the metropolization phenomenon accelerates the speed of the propagation of infectious diseases. Admittedly, these diseases can originate in rural areas, but urban areas remain crucial to their dissemination and their transformation into epidemics, or even pandemics, as was demonstrated in Mexico. In this megalopolis, several cumulative factors were observed, such as the massive importation of products, the presence of a highly mobile population, the existence of shanty towns, with their populations which were ill-equipped to understand the health messages, and a large number of non-residents in transit.
As for the financial crisis which indiscriminately weakened the tools of prevention, it should incite us to question state rationality. Bernard Vallat, Director General of the World Organization for Animal Health (OiE), has pointed to a decrease in the portion of public budgets dedicated to animal health, while, at the same time, the amounts invested in efficient monitoring remain derisory, compared to the cost of the belated management of health crises.
The influenza pandemic highlights and underlines international discrepancies in terms of development. For instance, it has reactivated certain ancient beliefs in the national cultures of developing countries: in China, the wholesale price of garlic, – a plant reputed to prevent the HINI flu – has been multiplied by fifteen since March, automatically becoming the target of speculators. The debate over the relevance of vaccination, on the other hand, has above all concerned the developed countries. The good health cover of their populations – institutionalized and financed by public authorities – has indeed played a part in the reduced social perception of the risk. Aware of these discrepancies, the WHO has put into motion an essentially symbolic set of actions, as materialized in the 2005 International Health Regulations, a normative measure which defines the responsibilities and obligations of the state. As far as the pharmaceutical companies are concerned, the move to maximal alert status had the consequence of compelling several of them, including Sanofi Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), to undertake to donate 100 million and 50 million doses of vaccine to poor countries. Acting on the same principle, nine countries – including the United States, France and the United Kingdom – put 10% of their stock at the disposal of the WHO.
The HINI flu has facilitated strategic re-configurations and the partial transfer of authority from the public to the private sector. In this respect the rapid development of vaccines from the prototypes elaborated for the H5NI avian flu virus constituted a major element. It must be remembered that France alone ordered 100 million doses for a total of nearly one billion euros. First of all, it should be noted that accelerated procedures have been established – in the United States as well as in the European Union – in order to authorize as quickly as possible the production of vaccines meeting the criteria of safety and efficiency. Given the demand, estimated at several hundred million doses, manufacturers exceptionally began producing batches of vaccines without waiting for the go-ahead from regulatory authorities. Secondly, it is worth noting the extent to which international trade in the medical sector between companies from the developed countries and those from emerging countries has been reinforced; to such an extent that India has recently become the world’s foremost producer of vaccines. Chinese laboratories, for their part, perfected the first vaccines against the flu. The slightest demands issued by the health authorities were, above all, at the service of a national aim: the Chinese state has to rapidly protect more than a billion people; all the more so as the WHO had warned that there would not be enough vaccines for the entire world population.
References
Beck Ulrich, La Société du risque. Sur la voie d’une autre modernité, translation, Paris, Aubier, 2001.
Chiffoleau Sylvia, “Santé et inégalités Nord/Sud : la quête d’un bien public équitablement mondial”, in : François Constantin (Éd.), Les Biens publics mondiaux. Un mythe légitimateur pour l’action collective?, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002, pp. 245-268.
Gabas Jean-Jacques, Hugon Philippe (Éds.), Biens publics à l’échelle mondiale, Paris, Colophon, 2001.
Kaul Inge, Grunberg Isabelle, Stern Marc A. (Eds), Global Public Goods, International Cooperation in the 21st Century, New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
