223. A representative of the WTO Secretariat said that, since the Council's last meeting, the WIPO and WTO Secretariats had organized, under the Joint Initiative, a joint national seminar on TRIPS in Niamey, Niger in December 2004. Two activities specifically addressed to LDCs were foreseen for the first half of the year 2005, namely a national seminar in Lesotho, that had originally been planned for December but postponed at the request of the Lesotho authorities, and another national seminar in Chad. As part of the WTO Technical Assistance Plan for 2005, the Secretariat was organizing four regional or sub-regional workshops which also covered LDCs. The first of them had been held in Fiji in January 2005 in response to requests from Pacific island countries. The remaining three were planned to be held in Gabon for French-speaking African countries at the end of May, in Zambia for English-speaking African countries at the end of July, and the last in one of the Caribbean countries later in the year.
224. He also drew attention to the second "WIPO-WTO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property Law" that was being organized jointly by the two organizations from 27 June to 8 July 2005. It was part of each of the two Organizations' capacity building programmes, aimed, in this case, at enhancing the capacity of universities and teachers in developing countries with respect to the activities and instruments of WIPO and the WTO. Only 20 places were available for the colloquium. Information on the colloquium, including online application forms, was available from the websites of WIPO and the WTO. He suggested that interested Members might wish to encourage eligible intellectual property teachers within their countries to apply before the deadline of 15 April 2005.
