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‘‘Eight million Africans are dying from HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria every year. We want to stop this,'' Regis Mtutu of the Treatment Action Campaign

Regarding the commitment to put aside 15 percent of national budgets for health services, ‘‘only Botswana and The Gambia have met this promise'', Mtutu said.

included a plan to set up pharmaceutical plants for producing life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). Mtutu pointed out that ‘‘the ministers for finance and industry were not part of the discussion. To succeed, the health ministers need mandates from their finance and industry counterparts.

policy officer at Oxfam Kenya office, told IPS that ‘‘‘MDGs' is just a label. It is a brand. ‘‘HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases are really the issue. It is about systems to deliver health care. This should be the starting point to meeting the MDGs,'' said Edete.

lthough governments have committed themselves to the MDGs and the Abuja target, some prefer to move at their own pace. Kenya's government, for example, says it will commit 12 percent of its national budget to health by 2008

‘‘It should be a step-by-step approach. Each country has its own strategy. If you set a time frame it might not work. For example, you cannot expect (strife-torn) countries like Somalia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo to reach the 15 percent target. It is not practical,'' she told IPS.

the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe deserves special mention as it is also a health crisis for Africa. People living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe cannot obtain the care they need and the climate of violence is perpetuating the epidemics of HIV and TB. ‘‘The shockwaves from the crisis in Zimbabwe are reverberating throughout the continent as refugees seek health care and other services in neighbouring countries. Our health ministers must speak out on Zimbabwe on health and humanitarian grounds,'' the coalition argued.

a new report, ‘‘Paying for People'', published this month (April), Oxfam estimates that 13.7 billion US dollars must be invested every year to appoint an additional 1 million teachers and 2.1 million health care workers urgently needed to break the cycle of poverty in Africa.

‘‘Today in too many of the world's poorest countries health and education services are dependent on a handful of workers struggling heroically to do their jobs on pitiful wages and in appalling conditions. Becoming a doctor, nurse or teacher is like signing a contract with poverty,'' Oxfam's Elizabeth Stuart wrote in the report.

Africa has 13 percent of the global population and 25 percent of the global burden of disease but only 1.3 percent of the global workforce.''

The report cites Tanzania as an example. This southern African country produces 640 doctors, nurses and midwives each year. But to reach the World Health Organisation's recommended staffing levels within 10 years it would need to produce 3,500 such health workers each year. Another example is Malawi where only nine percent of health facilities have adequate staff to provide basic health care. The country loses around 100 nurses each year ‘‘who emigrate in search of a better wage'', according to the Oxfam report. Charo told IPS that Kenyan health workers are not only moving overseas but are also seeking opportunities in the private sector for better pay. ‘‘If you work for government, you get 12,000 Kenya shillings (about 172 US dollars) but in the NGO or private sector you earn 40,000 shillings (nearly 572 US dollars) a month. People are tempted to move on.'' (END/2007)

These impoverished peasants often moved to the cities, providing cheap labor essential for the growth in urban manufacturing

Eastern Europe (especially Poland) and Latin America, exhibited characteristics of peripheral regions.

In Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests destroyed indigenous authority structures and replaced them with weak bureaucracies under the control of these European states.

served as buffers between the core and the peripheries

According to Wallerstein, the semi-peripheries were exploited by the core but, as in the case of the American empires of Spain and Portugal, often were exploiters of peripheries themselves. Spain, for example, imported silver and gold from its American colonies, obtained largely through coercive labor practices, but most of this specie went to paying for manufactured goods from core countries such as England and France rather than encouraging the formation of a domestic manufacturing sector.

Similarly, Protestants, who were often the merchants in Catholic countries, found they were targets of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, a trans-national institution, found the development of capitalism and the strengthening of the state threatening.

During this period, workers in Europe experienced a dramatic fall in wages.

This powerful merchant class provided the capital necessary for the industrialization of European core states.

European states participated in active exploration for the exploitation of new markets.

With the independence of the Latin American countries, these areas as well as previously isolated zones in the interior of the American continent entered as peripheral zones in the world economy. Asia and Africa entered the system in the nineteenth century as peripheral zones.

the core enriched itself at the expense of the peripheral economies. This, of course, did not mean either that everybody in the periphery became poorer or that all citizens of the core regions became wealthier as a result.

Wallerstein asserts that an analysis of the history of the capitalist world system shows that it has brought about a skewed development in which economic and social disparities between sections of the world economy have increased rather than provided prosperity for all.

This was the first time that an economic system encompassed much of the world with links that superseded national or other political boundaries

Human power is planned, allowing operation far from commercial sources of power.

All of the software on the laptop will be free and open source.[30]