139. The representative of the Secretariat informed the Council about two forthcoming national seminars that it was organizing jointly with WIPO, one in Myanmar in June and the other in Chad in August 2004. He said that the Secretariat was working on mutually agreeable arrangements with WIPO and host countries for national seminars in Ethiopia, Niger and Uganda to be held later in 2004. In addition to these joint activities with WIPO, he said that the Secretariat would be holding, at the request of these LDC Members, national seminars in Benin in July, Bangladesh in August, and Nepal in September 2004.
140. As regards other technical cooperation activities, the Secretariat was in the process of holding regional workshops on certain topical issues, including the TRIPS Agreement and public health, particularly the Decision on the Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, biotechnology, biodiversity, traditional knowledge and folklore, geographical indications, and enforcement. The Secretariat had already organized two such workshops, one in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April for Asian and the Pacific economies, and the other in Johannesburg, South Africa in June 2004 for English-speaking African countries. These workshops had benefited from contributions by speakers from WIPO and the WHO, as well as by delegates from developed and developing country Members who represented their countries in the TRIPS Council and, therefore, had full first-hand experience of these matters. He thanked the Malaysian and the South African authorities for their cooperation in the organization of these eventsas well as the Secretariats of WIPO and the WHO, as well as the delegations in question for making available speakers for these events. He informed the Council that the next such regional workshop would be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon in July for French-speaking African countries. The Secretariat was planning to organize jointly with WIPO another regional workshop in Moldova in October, and other activities in Latin America and the Caribbean in the final month of the year. The Secretariat would make a full report on its technical cooperation activities for the Council's September meeting.
