Many countries of the world, developing ones included, have got very strong ambitions on the
increase in market access and national treatment commitments for the presence of their natural persons
supplying services. At the higher chain of services industries, large corporate companies need to
move their workers, in good time, to various subsidiaries across the globe, so as to heighten efficiency,
competitiveness and profit margins. At the lower end of the industry, developing countries want to
send their skilled and semi-skilled services suppliers to work temporarily in developed countries, so as
to capitalize on the tremendous strength and benefit in the flow of remittances.
The movement of
natural persons to supply services is a very common phenomenon, particularly in the health sector.
Doctors, nurses, and other health service suppliers are on the move in search for better opportunities
than are available at home. In the WTO negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS), developing countries are ambitiously pursuing enhanced market access and national
treatment commitments from developed countries for provision of services through the presence of
natural persons, including in the health sector. It is well known that the systems for providing health
services in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are stretched thin.
In a
situation where the community of the world's Nations has obligations, imposed by law on
governments, to provide their people with universal access to basic health services, legitimate
questions of concern arise, regarding what this ambition means for implementing these obligations. Is
there a clash of interest and obligation? Are the two issues diametrically opposed? Such that attaining
both is impossible? Can these countries deliver on the right to health enshrined in many of their
national Constitutions, as well as in international legal instruments to which they are signatory, and in
many cases have ratified, yet at the same time aggressively export health service suppliers to other
countries?
