كيف تتذكر الشعوب شهدائها

شاهدت اليوم احتفال قرية إنجليزية بتذكار شهداء الحروب الكبري: العالمية الاولي والثانية وحرب كوريا.بجد اتقهرت علي حالنا!

بعد إنتهاء صلاة الأحد العادية تجمعت الناس (ألأكثر من غير المصلييين جاءو خصيصآ) عند النصب التذكاري للشهداء وهو ف ساحة صغيرة مفتوحة . كان الواقفين مجموعة متنوعة من البشر:سكان القرية،متفرجين زي حالاتي، وناس خارجة من الصلاة، ناس من الجيش والطيران منهم شباب وشابات بلبس الجيش والطيران (ربما بحرية بس أنا جاهلة ف الأزياء). وكان فيه ناس عجوزة بمداليات- واضح إنهم حاربو ف أحد الحروب وناس عجوزة أو معاقة علي كراسي متحركة. وكان هناك ايضآ كان فيه فرقة موسيقية وكشافة.

وعلمت أن مثل هذا الإحتفال أوالتذكار يحدث في كل قرية وحي أو مدينة ف جميع أنحاء بريطانيا: كله يتذكر شهداءه من أبناء المكان.

بعد خطبة دقيقتين بدأت الموسيقي العزف وبعدين قرأو أسماء شهداء ال3 حروب من القرية. تخيلت لو عاملين حاجه كده ف كل قرية ومدينة ف مصر لتذكار الشهداء ف الحروب المصرية- حلم عابر خبط ف نافوخي.

ثم قال واحد من الجيش: تذكروهم هؤلاء الذين دفعو حياتهم لحماية بلادهم.

وبعدها قالت القسيسة (آه واحدة ست) لندعو الله أن يوفقنا ف تحقيق السلام وفي رفع المعاناه عن الذين يقاسو في العالم . ولا حد قال كلمة واحدة عن الوطن ولا الدفاع عنه ولا عظمة الجيش والكلام ده.

وبعدين عزفو السلام الوطني وخلاص

ياتري احنا عارفين اسماء اللي ماتو ف أي حرب؟

Un-edited notes from the press briefing of Masood Ahmed, the director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at IMF. 

IMF economic forecast of ME

· Growth will be slow 2% slower than 2 years ago before and is lower than the ability to deal with high unemployment especially for Youth 

· In the next years, recovery will be too slow to cover new jobs let alone old unemployment. 

· Increase in fuel and food subsidy increased the fiscal deficit 

· The authority ability to postpone difficult decisions is limited. Yet changes aiming at inclusive growth and equal access to opportunities will lead to better prosperity in the medium and long term future 

· IMF is ready to support Egyptian program developed by the authority that addresses the main challenges e.g. fiscal imbalance, enjoys broad support to be implemented and that has adequate finance. 

· IMF was in Cairo in August. The govt will develop economic program. The Egyptian government invited the IMF to send a technical team by the end of this month to conclude program assessment. This means that the program is near ready 

· Egypt economy was affected by external shocks (global economic crisis) as well as the uncertainty of economic activities due to the political transition. There will be relatively low rate growth 2% and may be 3% next year. This is well below the growth needed to generate jobs. 750,000 joined market last year. In the medium term three is a strong diversified economy and Egypt has a strategic location (not sure how this affects economic growth)

Question: The IMF must be aware of Egyptian popular concerns on: transparency, how the loan will be used, what are the conditions of the loan, how it will be paid, and the huge debt burden that will result from the loan opening the door to further borrowing 

Answer:

These are important concerns for many people 

• Transparency: any programme has to be explained so that people understand the content. We will publish the agreed program and loan 
• IMF supports nationally developed program. The benchmarks are set by the country and not as conditions by IMF. Of course, IMF must ensure that the economic program will address the issues that face the countries. We must take a close look that the program will achieve objectives and that the money is well- used rather than just add it to the debt. 
• Debt worries many people but everyday Egyptian authorities take more debt to finance budget deficit. Yet the IMF is an easier way financially than borrowing from other sources where rate is high, such as internal borrowing which also deprive private sector from bank financing.
• The real issue is to implement policies to reduce deficit which drives the need to financing. So we try to make sure that policies will achieve objectives in a way which does not adverse poor people. 

Question: People are not sure that borrowing is needed without sound economic policies and plan and without looking at other sources of revenue. Will the IMF help with, for example tax reforms that generate tax from rich people rather than punish small businesses? Or will it advice for regressive, easy to collect tax like VAT. 

Answer

• IMF financing is temporary but the key is to use it to deal with structural things. Tax and rationalisation of subsidy take time but should get done if we focus on them. I don’t disagree with you. They are the sustainable solutions in the long term 
• IMF can ease the process by giving more time to deal with these structural problems through making available financial resources and sharing experience of other countries that dealt with similar problems 

Question How close is Egypt to entering financial crisis? 

Answer 

There are problems including the running down of foreign reserve from $35b to $15b and increased vulnerability of the economy. However, over the last few months, there has been a stabilisation in reserves with slight up reflecting market confidence which in turn reflects a combination of the political transition and the underlying strength of the Egyptian economy as well as the fact that the government is putting a program. They are putting a program to deal with short term challenges 

Question: IMF is identified by SAPS program under Mubarak and therefore you have credibility problems-would you defend this program which is full-heartedly rejected in Cairo? Is social inclusion included in negotiations? 

Answer

• We had not had a program in Egypt for a decade so lots of the changes are not due to IMF. But we learnt lessons from the Arab spring. We cannot look at the aggregate numbers of growth but we need to see how the benefit is shared, access to opportunities, and the impact of growth strategy on employment. These micro issues are not traditional the areas of expertise of the IMF. It is important to work with WB, ILO for better understanding of these micro effects 
• Now there is more focus at IMF to make the link between aggregate macro numbers and implications for employment and inclusion 
• This is reflected in programs. We set a floor for spending on social sectors and a ceiling on overall expenditure. The focus is on protecting vulnerable populations 
• It is a learning process, a journey on how to incorporate these aspects in our political work 

End

How did South Africa do it?

Six years ago at the 14^th AIDS conference in Toronto, Stephen Lewis, the then UN special convoy on HIV and Africa accused South Africa of being criminal in dealing with HIV. At that time the president refused to admit that HIV caused AIDS. The minister of health advised people living with HIV to use garlic and olive oil to treat HIV!

This year South Africa is a proud country. The country managed to beak the taboo about HIV and is scaling up prevention and access to testing and treatment. South Africa is on track to have an HIV free generation by stopping mother to child transmission.

So what turned the South African tide? Activism in South Africa goes back to the early days of the epidemic. In 2001, the global access to treatment movement led by South African activists and people living with HIV won a court case against 39 pharmaceutical companies who wanted to use Intellectual Property to boost their profits and thus limiting access to medicines in South Africa.

Then the activists fought their own government and took it to court and won their case so that the government had to start providing services for pregnant women to stop mother to child transmission.

Subsequent government and president learnt the lessons, recognising that hiding their head in the sand would only fuel the epidemic. The government decided to focus on allocating more domestic resources into HIV programmes even if donors pull out.

The moral of the story is clear: you cannot hide AIDS in any country- the only way to end it in any country is a combination of activism and high level political commitment.

Diary of the AIDS 2012 Conference

Sunday 22 July 2012

So the conference has not officially started but sessions were running anyway. Big pharma and a couple of generic and diagnostic producing companies have already sat up their impressive booths in the commercial exhibition centre. Few countries have also done so, notably the US, Germany and the Netherlands. Most NGOs have sat up their interesting booths in the Global Village. Last night it was great to meet old comrades and talk about the latest advocacy plans while they were setting up their tables and flyers. Global village is fun!

First session I attended was about Research and Development (R&D) for medicines: the new WHO report recommending global actions. Clearly the current system of R&D based on Intellectual Property (IP) has failed people in developing countries. Relying on the market to decide R&D priorities means production of medicines that would make high profits. Poor people cannot pay high price and therefore medicines for diseases like sleeping sickness or children HIV are not produced. Suffice to say that the latest diagnostics for TB is 100 years old and the latest medicine is 30 years old!

The WHO report recommends that countries allocate a small % of their GDP for R&D and that part of this money is pooled to pay for R&D for priority diseases. Priorities are set collectively by a coordinating body-the WHO.

Neither rich nations nor pharmaceutical companies are supportive of this model. Perhaps every new idea that commits governments to payment or challenge companies on their “normal” business are not popular.

But we have an opportunity to learn from the tobacco convention and other global initiatives so that the world can collaborate to invest in R&D for diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries. Time to act is now!

The world bank president at AIDS 2012

At the official opening of the AIDS 2012 conference, Jim Kim was the first World Bank president to address an AIDS conference. This is very significant. Given Jim Kim’s background in health and HIV, some were saying that he would not focus on health issues. Therefore it is heartening to see that he still recognises that health (including fighting HIV) is at the heart of poverty reduction and inclusive growth.

In 2005 when Jim Kim was at WHO, he engineered the –then-controversial strategy of treating 3 million people by 2005. Today 8 million people are on treatment. He sees a lot of lessons to be learnt from the response to HIV which can be implemented in education, maternal health and in poverty reduction strategies. He praised HIV advocates who campaigned for access to treatment and got the world to “turn the tide” of AIDS since the epidemic started.

I was pleased to hear him committing the World Bank to work on AIDS and to focus on what it does best: building sustainable health systems.

Jim Kim also talked about the importance of social protection because 150 million people fall into poverty/year due to cost of health care. Yet the bank would do a great job stopping these people falling into poverty by supporting countries to provide free public health care services and encouraging other donors to support similar programmes.

Well, if the Global Fund and PEPFAR are enabled to invest in HIV prevention, treatment and care, pharma joins the patent pool and thus generic companies can produce affordable new medicines, and the World Bank scales up investment in sustainable free public health services, then we really can end AIDS!

Asmaa: A beautiful story of love at the time of AIDS

At last I watched Asmaa. I heard about the film last time I was in Egypt but unfortunately I missed it when it was screened there.

Based on a true story, the film shows the life of an Egyptian woman living with HIV. Asmaa was managing to live with HIV, but she needed an ordinary operation. Being an honest woman, she told the surgeon that she is HIV +Ve. That was enough to get her thrown out of the hospital. No other surgeons would accept to perform the operation.

While in despair, a popular TV programme contacted her, via HIV support group, and offered to help her if she appeared on TV. Asmaa refuses to say how she got infected so that she does not implicate others.

The story portrays the stigma, discrimination and ignorance of Egyptian society especially the medical profession. It is depressing that at the time the world is talking about ending AIDS, ignorance, silence and prejudice in North Africa is similar to the situation in other countries but during the eighties.

Discrimination against HIV +ve people actually uncovers even deeper layers of prejudices in Arab societies.  For example, one of the common ideas among the public there is that “the number of HIV + ve people is so small”. Yet those who hold this view do not seem to see that people have tights (e.g. to respect and treatment) whether belonged to a small of big sector in society. The obsession with knowing how people got infected reflects Arab societies preoccupation with how others practice a “strict moral code” connected only with sex and sexuality especially concerning women.

The film managed to escape directly “educating” society about stigma. Through a simple love story with beautiful traditional village scene, it makes the audience question their own prejudices and unfairness.

10 priorities for the new Egyptian president in his first 100 days

1. Releasing all political prisoners since Jan 25^th 2011 and acquitting all released and detainees from all political accusations
2. Issuing a decree for the government to provide free treatment for all those injured during the revolution events in the best hospitals in Egypt or abroad if needed
3. Commencing trials for all responsible for the killing and injury of the political activists
4. Submitting a draft law of the freedom of civil society organisations and freedom of association to the parliament
5. Commencing the plan for the restructure the ministry of interior and the national security organisations
6. Issuing a decree to separate the media from the control of the government and security organisations
7. Setting up committee of experts to plan for universal coverage of health care which will then go for public consultation
8. Setting up committee of experts to plan comprehensive restructuring of the education system and for encouraging scientific research (dedicating 0.001% of government budget to research)
9. Committing the government to plan economic reforms that enhance economic growth that benefit all people focusing on: agriculture, tourism and small and Youth Employment
10. Setting up committee of experts to plan the restructuring the judiciary and litigation

1. 
   

10 أولويات  للرئيس الجديد ف أول 100 يوم من حكمه

1.   الإفراج عن كل المعتقليين السياسيين منذ 25 يناير وحتي الآن وبراءة جميع المحتجزين والمفرج عنه

2.   إصدار قرار بإلزام الحكومة بعلاج المصابين مجانآ ف أحسن مستشفيات مصر أو بالخارج علي نفقة الدولة

3.   البدء في محاكمة المسئولين عن قتل وإصابة الثوار

4.   تقديم مشروع حرية المجتمع المدني وحرية تكوين الجمعيات للبرلمان

5.   بدء العمل في وضع خطة هيكلة الداخلية وتقنين عمل المخابرات والأمن القومي

6.   إصدار قرار بفصل أجهزة الإعلام: الصحافة والإذاعة والتلفزيون عن هيمنة الحكومة والمخابرات

7.   تشكيل لجنة من الخبراء لوضع خطة الرعاية الصحية الشاملة لجميع المواطنين وعرضها علي الشعب للمناقشة

8.   تشكيل لجنة من الخبراء لوضع خطة إصلاح التعليم ثم عرضها علي الشعب للمناقشة

9.   إلزام الحكومة بتقديم خطة الإصلاح الإقتصادي التي تعزز النمو الاقتصادي الذي يستفيد به كل الشعب والتركيز علي النمو في قطاعات: الزراعة والسياحة والمشاريع الصغيرة وتشغيل الشباب

10.  تشكيل لجنة من الخبراء لوضع خطة إعادة هيكلة القضاء والتقاضي

لا لتحديد حدآ أقصي للأجور!

هل تحديد الحد الأعلي للأجور هو الحل؟

لا أعتقد للأسباب الآتية:

1. اللذين يتقاضون مثل هذه الرواتب لن يقبلو تخفيضها وحتي لو خٌفِضُت بالقانون فسيتحالون علي ذلك

2. وضع حد أعلي للأجور لن يفيد الأجور المتدنية أو المتوسطة

وبدلآ عمن ذلك أقترح قانون يطلق الحد الأعلي للأجور لكل مؤسسة \هيئة مع ربط الحد الأعلي بالحد الأدني للأجور: مثلآ أن يكون الحد الأقصي للأجور 100 ضعف للحد الأدني . وبذلك إذا كان أكبر أجر ف المؤسسة هو 100 ألف جنية فيكون أقل مرتب (مثلآ لعامل النظافة) هو ألف جنية . ويزداد مرتب باقي العاملين طبقآ للوظيفة والخبرة والشهادة  حتي تصل إلي 100 ألف جنيهآ.

إن هذه الربط يضمن حدآ أدني لجميع الأجور أكثر إرتفاعآ من التحديد العشوائي ب 1200 جنية أو أي مبلغ آخر. كما يضمن إزدياد المرتب بانتطام لأن ذوي المرتبات العالية سيظلو يطالبون بزيادات سنوية كلما زادت نفقات المعيشة أو زادت تطلعاتهم لحياة أفضل.

ويستلزم هذا الربط زيادات كبيرة في ميزانيات الأجور مما يمكن تحقيقة  عن طريق زيادة ميزانية المؤسسة من قبل الحكومة. أما إذا لم تتوفر الميزيانيات فتكون المؤسسة مضطرة لإعادة هيكلة الأجور باستخدام الربط مما قد يترتب عليه خفض الأجور العليا. ولكن هذا الخفض يختلف عن وضع أن تقوم الحكومة بوضع حدآ أقصي للأجور من حيث أنه في حالة الخفض يكون القرار مُتَخذآ من قبل العاملين في المؤسسة وليس قرارآ "يندب علي نافوخهم" من قِبَل الحكومة.

مجرد فكرة. مارأيكم؟