A/HRC/17/43 Ms. Ha discussed procurement and supply management challenges, and underlined the importance of having a transparent, competitive and fair procurement system that ensured quality, availability and affordability of medicines. She explained that the Fund provided procurement supply management assistance to countries and facilitates access to technical assistance and capacity-building services in recipient countries in partnership with technical agencies. It spends around 37 per cent of its budget on medicines and health products, and 15 per cent on human resources. She also pointed out that strengthening health systems was fundamental to achieve the goal of ensuring access to medicines and the full enjoyment of the right to health. The Fund spent 6 per cent of its budget to support health systemstrengthening-related activities. She highlighted the need of a sustainable solution for the production of lower priced generic drugs in adequate formulations; to simplify intellectual property management to ensure that countries were able to take full advantages of TRIPS flexibilities as well as to comply with those flexibilities; and lastly, to provide an incentive mechanism to facilitate the arrival of new drugs on the market. She pointed out the various harmonization steps and initiatives taken by the Fund, and also highlighted the fact that human rights principles of equality, non-discrimination, participation, transparency and accountability were reflected in the work of the Fund. 34. Tido vos Schoen-Angerer and Emmanuel Tronc from Médécins sans Frontières, raised several crucial questions that had been previously mentioned, namely, that some States pursued policies that directly undermined access to medicines and were often unwilling (or unable) to provide care of adequate quality; and the fact that the prevalence of diseases in developing and developed countries could change the world’s perspective on the importance of access to medicines. The necessity to ensure access to new medicines, where to produce them and how to enable their importation to countries where they were most needed, as well as how to provide patients with the latest recommended treatment, was again underlined. Médécins sans Frontières welcomed the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action for Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, as it could fundamentally change the way health research and development was conducted and financed, in order to ensure that medicines were made accessible to those who needed them. This was a historical change, but its implementation depended on the willingness of States to translate the Strategy into action. It was noted that particularly vulnerable groups, such as undocumented migrants, were subject to additional obstacles in the context of access to medicines owing to their uncertain legal status, cultural and linguistic differences and exclusion from health insurance schemes and social security systems, as well as lack of community support. 35. In the interactive debate following the panel discussion, many substantive issues were raised, including the concern that the adjective “essential” medicines may lead to the exclusion of other much-needed medicines. Regarding the responsibility of Governments, some State representatives were of the opinion that the Governments of developing countries were being too harshly judged, and that otherwise responsible Governments sometimes simply did not have the means to provide access to medicines. This was, in turn, due to the fact that patents — imposed by pharmaceuticals and developed countries — increased the prices of medicines. As a result, the Governments of developing countries were not only unable to afford these medicines, but because of the long terms of patents, they were also unable to benefit from the knowledge of developed countries, which they needed in order to produce cheap generic medicines. Moreover, if the duration of patents was extended for an additional five years, as had been proposed by certain pharmaceutical companies and developed countries, the situation would further deteriorate. 36. Essential medicines should not be patented. When TRIPS flexibilities were again raised, some State representatives insisted that issues such as the protection of private sector industries by the developed countries, which caused vast injustice to poor people, should also be discussed in other forums, such as the Human Rights Council and the World 10 GE.11-11842