Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Intellectual Property and Development: The Issues Viewed through a Pacific Islands Prism
- Chapter 2 Health and Issues of Access to Medicine
- Chapter 3 Access to Educational Resources
- Chapter 4 Problems with Importing the Global Intellectual Property Regime into Pacific Island Countries: Learning from Land
- Chapter 5 Setting Out a New Approach to Intellectual Property and Development
- Chapter 6 Intellectual Property and Technological Innovation in Pacific Island Countries: The Example of Sustainable Sea Transport
- Chapter 7 Branding, Certifying and Authenticating in Pacific Island Countries
- Chapter 8 The Regulation of Traditional Medicinal Knowledge in Pacific Island Countries
- Conclusion
- About the Authors
Chapter 2 - Health and Issues of Access to Medicine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 November 2017
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Intellectual Property and Development: The Issues Viewed through a Pacific Islands Prism
- Chapter 2 Health and Issues of Access to Medicine
- Chapter 3 Access to Educational Resources
- Chapter 4 Problems with Importing the Global Intellectual Property Regime into Pacific Island Countries: Learning from Land
- Chapter 5 Setting Out a New Approach to Intellectual Property and Development
- Chapter 6 Intellectual Property and Technological Innovation in Pacific Island Countries: The Example of Sustainable Sea Transport
- Chapter 7 Branding, Certifying and Authenticating in Pacific Island Countries
- Chapter 8 The Regulation of Traditional Medicinal Knowledge in Pacific Island Countries
- Conclusion
- About the Authors
Summary
INTRODUCTION
In the next two chapters we focus on two specific areas in which introduced forms of intellectual property, while they may confer benefits on a small minority of Pacific islanders, are more likely to confer benefits on those elsewhere, and may have negative consequences on development for the majority of people in the region. These areas are access to medicine and educational resources, which also give rise to issues linked to the promotion and integration of traditional medicinal knowledge and practice, and less formal forms of education focused on traditional skills within the context of development.
Health and education are seen as being of crucial relevance to the attainment of development aims, particularly Millennium Development Goals. Of the eight goals, two relate to education and three relate to health. The United Nations Pacific reports however that:
‘the Pacific region runs the very high risk of not achieving the MDGs. The Pacific's development status is uneven. With varying socio-economic and political contexts and economies of scale, assessing a regional profile can be complex. This is exacerbated the shifts in progress at the geographical sub-regions of the Pacific; Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. For many Pacific Island Countries this is the case, the Pacific is not performing well on many goals and the region is struggling to achieve the MDGs by 2015, with several countries unlikely to achieve many of the goals. The Melanesian countries still have a long way to go, while for the Polynesian, and to a lesser extent the Melanesian countries, the challenge is not to regress in the progress already achieved.’
Education and health are also relevant to the way in which development is measured by the United Nations - along with gross national income. Out of 187 ranked countries in the 2014 Human Development Index Report, Pacific island countries ranked as follows: Palau 60, Fiji 88, Tonga 100, Samoa 106, Federated States of Micronesia 124, Vanuatu 131, Kiribati 133, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea 157. Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu were unranked and Niue does not appear.
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- Information
- Publisher: IntersentiaPrint publication year: 2015