IP/C/W/644/REV.1/ADD.1

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

• The UNCTAD Secretariat, through its Intellectual Property (IP) Unit, located within the Division on Investment and Enterprise, implements a work programme on the development dimensions of IP rights. The work programme is designed to respond to the mandate received from Member States at the Ministerial Conference in Nairobi (July 2016), as well as to intergovernmental requests under the WIPO Development Agenda and the World Health Assembly’s Resolution 61.21 on a Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. It is partially funded by donor governments and institutions. Currently, the work programme targets:

• IP rights and local pharmaceutical production and supply capacity for essential medicines. UNCTAD was requested by its Commission on Investment, Technology and Related Financial Issues (2005) to assess ways in which developing countries can develop their domestic productive capability in the supply of essential drugs in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies.^[1] In the pursuit of this mandate, UNCTAD implements a work programme on local pharmaceutical production, with a view to assisting developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) in particular, to utilise IP rights as tools that facilitate increased access to affordable medicines, and, where feasible, to promote domestic and foreign investment to create local or regional pharmaceutical production and supply capacities. The programme is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

• IP rights, technology transfer and trade facilitation. From 2016-2018, UNCTAD implemented a programme on IP, transfer of technology and trade facilitation, with the financial support from BMZ. The programme focused on the use of IP regimes for the promotion of technological absorption capacities and the use of IP rights such as trademarks for trade facilitation.

• Policy coherence for local pharmaceutical production. From 2015-2018, UNCTAD in collaboration with Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) implemented a work programme to assist developing countries' efforts to promote coherence of policies in respect of health, trade and industrial development and ensure that local pharmaceutical production improves access to medicines. UNCTAD and GIZ pursued this activity on a regional basis in South-East Asia and the East African Community (EAC).

1. Currently, UNCTAD is undertaking consultation with donor governments, developing countries and other partners with a view to complementing its current work programme with additional work programmes on the use of:

• IP rights for regional economic integration;
• Technology transactions, including IP licensing for industrial capacity building; and
• IP rights for participation in the digital economy and e-commerce.

1. In implementing its work programme, the IP Unit conducts research and policy analysis, facilitates consensus-building and responds to requests for technical assistance for successfully integrating developing countries into the world economy. This document provides an overview of UNCTAD’s IP and development-related activities from 1 November 2017 to 31 October 2018.

^[1] See at http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/c2l22_en.pdf (paragraph 9 (c) of the Agreed Recommendations).