Ten years ago, in the Qatari capital of Doha, member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO), launched the Doha Round of negotiations.
The historic Doha declaration, the right of countries to protect public health as enshrined in the WTO's agreement on Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), was launched amid much fanfare in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, as rich countries promised to level the playing field for producers from the developing world to win access to lucrative markets.
But a decade later, discussions have not been concluded. Most economies feel the negotiations will never come to a successful end if talks continue in the same vein.
World leaders at the recent G20 summit said they will stand by the Doha Development Agenda mandate.
"However, it is clear that we will not complete the DDA if we continue to conduct negotiations as we have in the past," they added.
The declaration marked a drastic change of tone from previous summits, when leaders typically pledged to "promptly" bring the negotiations to a close. This year, there was no such mention.
Trade analysts contend that it was now difficult to make yet another call for a rapid conclusion of the round, given the repeated failures.
SEATINI Uganda Executive Director, Ambassador Nathan Irumba, argues that Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have a low say in the multilateral trading system.
"As poor countries we would better off with multilateral system where we can advance our interest have more say and more prospects of protecting them," Irumba said.
"In WTO, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. If you have nothing to trade in, then you have nothing to demand. They will just give you some few exemptions. We are not yet there in terms of trade offs and we have nothing to bargain with"
The Doha Round of trade negotiations were launched on November 14, 2001 in the Qatari capital with the aim of helping developing countries grow through improved trade access.
However, industrialized and developing nations have time and again failed to agree on the level of cuts on industrial good-tariffs and agriculture subsidies.
"The fact that the Doha Round has not been concluded and there is no evidence that it will be concluded in the near future shows that there are still issues of how trade can be managed. Issues of free trade don't work anymore," said Jane Nalunga, Country Director SEATINI Uganda.
As the round marked ten year on November 14, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are calling upon Uganda Government to take advantage of flexibilities in the Doha declaration on Public Health to review industrial properties bill to promote access to medicine in Uganda.
The Doha declaration provided an opportunity to place the protection of public health beyond the protection of private commercial interests.
"Some of the provisions under the industrial property bill do not fully utilize flexibilities set out in the WTOs agreement on TRIPS to which Uganda is a party" notes Moses Mulumba from the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development.
According to the 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) report, Uganda is ranked 13th in African countries with eth highest HIV prevalence rate among adults aged 15-49 years
In January, some political leaders made call for the conclusion of the round in 2011, with British Prime Minister David Cameron warning that "we cannot go on after a decade with another year" of negotiations. "If we come back and we're still talking about it, then I think that would be hopeless," Cameron had said./.