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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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FROM POVERTY TO POWER• Establish international guidelines on the balance betweenpublic interest and incentives for innovation, and give priority<strong>to</strong> ensuring that knowledge and innovation is placed at theservice of development, perhaps through an ‘InternationalConvention on Access <strong>to</strong> Knowledge’. Examples of approachesbased on access <strong>to</strong> knowledge include the open source movementthat generated the Linux computer operating systemand the user-generated free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.• Explore alternative ways of encouraging research anddevelopment in<strong>to</strong> pressing issues (health, climate change).These could include increasing public funding and ‘advancemarket commitments’, whereby aid donors promise <strong>to</strong>purchase large quantities of a yet-<strong>to</strong>-be-invented medicine orvaccine for particular health problems at a negotiated price.A suggestion by Joseph Stiglitz is <strong>to</strong> offer a large prize for theinvention of a drug, on the proviso that it is not placed underpatent and can go straight <strong>to</strong> generic production.The current system of global rules on knowledge is a severe and growingobstacle <strong>to</strong> development. It drives up inequality, creating a world oftechnological haves and have-nots, stifles innovation even in theNorth,and in the worst cases constitutes little more than what economistscall ‘rent seeking’. The obstacles <strong>to</strong> changing it are not intellectual –there are any number of good reform proposals – but political. Thosecorporate leaders with a longer-term understanding of the need <strong>to</strong>tackle inequality and poverty must rein in their lobbyists, whilepoliticians in both North and South must show leadership and curbthe kinds of backdoor political influence that allow short-termcorporate self-interest <strong>to</strong> s<strong>to</strong>p knowledge flowing in the global economy.Such changes require active, informed citizens, as the case of SouthAfrica’s Treatment Action Campaign shows (see page 242). They alsorequire effective states, able <strong>to</strong> stand up <strong>to</strong> pressures in trade negotiationsor in their own courts in the interests of tackling poverty andinequality. Developing-country governments, backed by public pressureat home and internationally, have become increasingly assertive indefending their citizens’ right <strong>to</strong> health and knowledge. It is vital thatthey are allowed and encouraged <strong>to</strong> do so.332

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