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thought you might enjoy - hadn't thought of sending you prviously but this is daily media monitoring we get for europe. let me know if you ever want?
Europe daily media monitoring
June 17, 2011
Europe
Deworminq and handwashinq can offer better value than immunisation
By Will Crouch.
Financial Times
June 17, 2011
• Will Crouch is Assistant Director and Head of Research at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. He writes in response to the Financial Times' article "Donors give vaccine fund $4.3bn boost."
• The Financial Times has rightly flagged up the debate about whether this is the best use of their funds because of the high price that GAVI pays for vaccinations, and the problems GAVI faces with implementing its immunization programs.
• But it's important that "cost-effectiveness" is properly understood. The UK's Department for International Development refers to "value for money" when describing its priorities. But it doesn't have a sensible metric for what counts as "value."
• But health economists do: namely, the Disability Adjusted Life Year, or DALY. This represents one lost year of healthy life: averting one DALY is equivalent in value to giving one person one year of life at very high quality health.
• Research using this metric shows that what we should be most concerned about is not whether the GAVI gets a good price for its vaccines, but whether immunization is the right program to fund at all. By funding the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines, it is paying $100 for every DALY averted. This is a very good deal compared with many other uses of the money, but surprisingly we can do much better again.
Sarkozy targets commodity prices
By Staff
Financial Times
June 16, 2011
• A whole range of commodity markets have spent the last six months flirting with multiyear highs. One reason is the surging demand in emerging economies such as China and India. Worse, a jump in the cost of food is a matter of life and death for the world's 1bn chronically hungry.
• On Tuesday, Nicolas Sarkozy set out a three-pronged approach: boosting production; increasing transparency in commodities derivatives markets by
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standardizing contracts and forcing more deals on to exchanges (most are currently bilateral); and setting a minimum amount of collateral that parties must post when they enter into a derivatives transaction.
• non-physical Reforming trading. derivatives It would markets be impossible should not — and be a undesirable cover for a — crusade to completely on reverse the "financialization" of commodities markets which Mr Sarkozy so abhors.
• In food markets, for example, it is useful to smooth over the period of a year prices that would otherwise swing wildly either side of a harvest. The liquidity provided by numerous non-physical traders makes this easier.
Germany
The reform of development aid (Die Entwicklungshilfereform)
By Staff
Tageszeitung
June 17, 2011
• It's been years that the OECD laments the inefficiency of German development aid due to the large range of organizations operating in this field.
• This is why Dirk Niebel fused the three main organizations to GIZ. The new association has about 17 000 employees.
• However, it is not proved yet if the new association leads to savings and efficiency.
A first class argument (Ein Streit erster Klasse)
By Gordon Repinski
Tageszeitung
June 17, 2011
• The whole German development sector experiences a particular dispute which started with a letter of a social democrat asking for proof of allegations.
• The argument questions the efficiency, structure and policies of development aid. Many had tried to fuse development aid organizations before the current Minister, Dirk Niebel, finally did so this year.
• However, the individual organizations used to have their own structure. Now the former GTZ structure rules development aid policies.
• Besides, the head of the GIZ, Bernd Eisenblatter, claims that they aim at being the leader of worldwide development aid.
• The association will have to justify their action in the coming weeks.
France
Peru: Lima says it's free of GMOs, until the peruvian moratorium (Perou: Lima se declare "libre d'OGM", en attendant un moratoire peruvien)
By Staff
Agence France Presse
June 17, 2011
• Lima, with more than 8 million inhabitants, has adopted a municipal decree declaring the city to be a GMO-free zone to protect its citizens and the
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environment.
• For the minister of Agriculture, this decree only puts legal force to texts that were already in place against the import of GMOs.
U.S./Agriculture: the House of Representatives votes controversial budgetary cuts (USA/agriculture: la Chambre vote des reductions budgetaires controversees)
By Staff
Agence France Presse
June 17, 2011
• The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday passed a finance bill of the agriculture sector, containing controversial cuts.
• The bill includes funding for fiscal year 2012 for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, of the FDA and the CFTC.
Farmers from North and South are gathered in Paris (Agriculteurs du Nord et du
Sud vont discuter ensemble a Paris )
By Staff
Le Monde
June 16, 2011
• This week, the National Federation of Farmers Trade Unions (FNSEA) and the Young Farmers (JA) have organized a G120, gathering 120 organizations from 80 different countries.
• The meeting takes place under the theme "farmers take the word" and aims to discuss important topics such as price volatility, climate change, speculation and food versus fuel.
• Present at the opening of the G120 was President Sarkozy who called for a new agriculture model: "economic, social and environment rules to progress"
This was also covered in Le Point and Agence France Presse.
Sierra Leone: the mortality rate due to malaria has been reduced by half (Sierra
Leone: la mortalite due au paludisme a baisse de moitie)
By Staff
Agence France Presse
June 16, 2011
• The number of the deaths attributed to malaria has been reduced by half, from 32% to 16%, thanks to the distribution of some 3.2 million mosquito nets in 2010.
• Ms Wani Komba Lahai, responsible for the health authorities, said that 98% of the mosquito nets were being used in the right way.
• The Ministry of Health has called on all the health workers to raise awareness on malaria as the country is entering the rain season.
The U.S. still dominate global agriculture (Les Etats-Unis dominent toujours ('agriculture planataire)
By Anne Cheyvialle
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Le Figaro
June 16, 2011
• Leader in the export of soy and corn, lead producer of the milk and beef, number three in the production of cereal...the U.S. are a major agriculture power.
• In the U.S., the agriculture sector represents only 1.4% of the GDP, against 1.6% in 1995. In Europe the decrease was bigger, going from 2.7% to 1.8%.
• This does not mean the sector is declining, but it points to productivity gains through technological progress.
• To feed 9 billion people in 2050, Africa has a big role to play. In Asia, there's no land left, and the U.S. and Europe's productivity are at a maximum," says Jean-Marc Gravellini, Africa Director of the French Development Agency.
How will the IMF chose between Lagarde and Carstens (Comment le FMI va
choisir entre Lagarde et Carstens)
By Staff
Agence France Presse
June 16, 2011
• The IMF wants to appoint a new managing director by the end of this month. A debate between the 24 members of the executive board will decide between the French, Christine Lagarde, or the Mexican, Agustin Carstens.
• To be able to take on the position, Ms Lagarde will have resign from her current minister post as the IMF only appoints a managing director that isn't a governor or administrator of a fund.
• One third of the executive board represents their country and two thirds represent a group of countries. Europe has 8 representatives. To decide the board first needs to talk with both candidates at a date that isn't revealed to the public.
The French do not trust scientists (Les Francais se fient a la science, pas aux chercheurs)
By Pierre Le Hir
Le Monde
June 16, 2011
• An Ipsos study for La Recherche and Le Monde reveals doubts on the independence of scientists.
• To the question "do you trust scientists to say the truth on the results and consequences of their work?" a minority of French responded yes.
• GMOs and nuclear energy are the research fields where scientists' results are the least convincing: only one in three respondents trusts scientists.
Spain
Child malnutrition is "bad business" for Central America, experts say
(Desnutricion infantil es "un mal negocio" para Centroamerica, dicen expertos) By Staff
EFE
June 17, 2011
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• Child malnutrition is a "bad deal" for Central America in terms of costs for each country since it leads to a lack of productivity and intellectual labor, experts said today in San Salvador.
• "There is evidence that chronic child malnutrition has an economic impact on a country if these children can never expand their skills and contribute to labor productivity, intellectually and physically," said the Regional Director for the UN World Food Program (WFP), Jaime Vallaure.
• Rodrigo Martinez, member of the Social Development Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said that the economic costs for malnutrition in Central America and the Dominican Republic were estimated to be around 6,700 million U.S. dollars for 2004.
UK
Mass vaccination and Big Pharma
By Alison Evans
The Guardian
June 17, 2011
• Alison Evans is Director of the Overseas Development Institute and responds to the GAVI vaccine pledge.
• Vaccines are a quick win with a clear and strongly desirable outcome. Not all development is made up of quick wins, however. At the Overseas Development Institute we have spent the last year researching episodes of development progress across the developing world.
• Our report, Mapping Progress: Evidence For A New Development Outlook, was launched this week to assess what is working in development and why.
• There are four common drivers of development - smart leadership, smart policies, smart institutions and smart friends.
A shot in the arm By Staff
The Economist
June 16, 2011
• Over the past decade the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), founded with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has become the world's main advocate of immunisation. Last year Mr Gates announced a new "decade of vaccines".
• On June 13th, at a conference in London, the group got its wish, and more, with donors pledging $4.3 billion to help immunise 250m children.
• Immunisation rates in the poor world have soared.One reason for this success vaccine-makers is increased in emerging competition markets. among The manufacturers, Serum Institute largely of India, thanks for instance, to says that its vaccines now immunise half the world's children.
• Another is GAVI itself. Before its creation, UNICEF offered short-term tenders for vaccines. By contrast, GAVI has insisted on higher volumes and long-term contracts to attract manufacturers and drive down prices.
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• The Gates Foundation has experimented with "push" financing, to develop a cheap vaccine against meningitis A.
• Different vaccines will require different models. Some may be pushed by grants while still in the early stages of development. In other cases, high prices in the rich world can subsidise low ones in poor countries.
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