Gender and trade

The right to health ranked first among fundamental rights these past few years after COVID-19 caused severe economic and social repercussions worldwide. These répercussions affected the right to work and education. They highlighted the core deficiencies of health, education, and social protection systems and governments’ inability to provide for their citizens basic services that are proper and fair. Hence, The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) took a significant interest in the right to health, adopting it as the topic for the 6th edition of its Arab Watch Report in an attempt to critically analyze health policies, or rather health systems, in both their institutional and structural dimensions on the one hand and their policy dimensions on the other.

This report attempts to highlight the correlation between neoliberal globalization and human rights with a focus on the right to health. We relied on available academic research and studies as well as outputs and statistics published by international, regional, and national organizations. The report explicates the negative effect of neoliberal globalization on economic rights, particularly the right to health, and sheds light on the mechanisms producing these negative outcomes. The first section of the study will present the concept of neoliberal globalization and the role of international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank specifically) in its world expansion, especially in the global south, also known as the developing countries. These institutions use conditionality to impose structural adjustment programs (SAPs; also called “economic reform”) based on the economic liberalization, privatization, and austerity trifecta. We demonstrate the negative effect of these programs by focusing on the right to health. The second and third sections will focus on the Arab region as a case study. In the second section, we address the effects of austerity policies on the implementation of the right to health for all citizens, while the third and final section showcases how privatization of the health sector and business agreements negatively affect the right to health.

This regional paper provides a theoretical base and a synthesis of evidence delineated in the AWR-2023 papers. It begins with a review of the meaning of the right to health, the historical events that contributed to its rise and transformation, and the connections between the right to health and other rights and entitlements. The second section in the paper presents a sketch of the political economy of the Arab region and the ways in which policies facilitate or impede achieving the right to health. The third and main section in the paper synthesizes the information and evidence presented in national and thematic papers, and the case study, under six cross-cutting themes: state recognition of the right to health versus realities on the ground; health system governance and neoliberalism; the right to health in a COVID-19 era; the impact of war, occupation, and displacement; and climate change. The themes were developed through a careful reading of early drafts of the papers and discussions during two meetings that brought together authors and ANND advisory board members. A seventh theme in this section summarizes a few critical issues that bear on the right to health in the region but that were not sufficiently highlighted in national papers. The report concludes with policy recommendations.

A new report from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria provides an overview of the impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of health services in the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in 32 countries in Africa and Asia. It highlights the adaptation measures taken by health facilities to counter the disruption to their services caused by the pandemic.

ESCR-Net’s Women and ESCR Working Group briefing paper series focuses on the intersection between women and specific economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) issues. The papers present specific and systemic challenges to the realisation of women’s ESCR in practice and explore progressive approaches to the application of a substantive equality perspective. The papers draw primarily upon ESCR-Net members’ work in different areas, and are further informed by and enhanced through dialogue with other experts in this field. This paper was prepared for, and informed by, the Working Group’s consultation with members of the CEDAW Committee and CESCR on ‘Women and economic, social and cultural right