Ambassador Al-Otaibi (Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia) and Ambassador Alfredo Suescum (Panama)

World Trade Organization

12 TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND CAPACITY-BUILDING

297. This report on the WTO activities relating to TA in the TRIPS area will be brief. However, details are also available in document IP/C/W/608. 298. In the first place, I would like to underline that technical cooperation is driven essentially by demand from Members, as well as from countries preparing to accede to the WTO. Growing diversity of the needs and interests identified by Members has led to increased tailoring and focusing of technical assistance activities on specific areas of interest. At the same time, the Secretariat has adopted a more holistic approach to its capacity building activities in general, putting the TRIPS Agreement and its policy choices into a broader context. This approach takes into account the interface between the TRIPS Agreement and other WTO Agreements, such as agriculture, TBT and SPS. 299. Turning now to individual activities, I would like to focus on Geneva-based activities on IP as they represent a large proportion of our technical activities. They are rich in content and serve to intensify our collaboration with other relevant international organizations, in particular WIPO and the WHO. They offer good value for money as the cost is, in many cases, shared with partners. 300. I am thinking in particular of the flagship joint WIPO-WTO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property from Developing Countries and countries with economies in transition. This activity formed part of the wider Secretariat's approach towards cooperation with the academic community in developing countries aimed at local capacity building on WTO matters. The main objective of the Colloquium was to update university teachers of IP on the activities and instruments of the WIPO and the WTO with focus on important policy issues under negotiation or discussion in the two Organizations. 301. Another important Geneva-based activity is the joint WIPO-WTO Advanced Course on Intellectual Property. This Course continued to draw on the experience of the Colloquium, and applied a similar programme structure and pedagogic strategy, but was tailored and focused on government officials and public sector policymakers instead of university teachers and researchers. 302. Finally, a Workshop on Trade and Public Health was organized in Geneva by the WTO Secretariat in close collaboration with the WHO and WIPO. Built on a series of nine workshops on intellectual property and public health that had been held by the Secretariat since 2005, this Workshop was the first ever WTO event to cover a wide range of multilateral trade agreements and their link to the achievement of public health objectives. 303. The WTO has also been active outside of Geneva. I am thinking in particular of national and regional activities on IP organised all over the world. 304. I would also like to mention that a TRIPS module is included in WTO eTraining Courses. These are web-based courses for developing country and economies in transition, which are provided in English, French and Spanish all-year-round. 305. Finally, the WTO Secretariat's technical cooperation in the area of TRIPS includes cooperation with other intergovernmental organizations. In particular, the WHO, WIPO and WTO Secretariats have continued their trilateral cooperation with a view to fostering a better understanding of the linkage between public health, intellectual property and trade more generally.

The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.

12.1. The Chairman recalled that, at its meeting in June 2015, the Council had agreed to hold its annual review of technical cooperation at this meeting. He suggested that Members also discuss any other issues relating to this agenda item.

12.2. In preparation for the annual review, developed country Members had been once more requested to update information on their technical and financial cooperation activities relevant to the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement in time for this meeting. Other Members who also made available technical cooperation had been encouraged to share information on these activities if they so wished. The Secretariat had issued on 19 June 2015 an airgram (WTO/AIR/IP/4) reminding Members of this request. In addition, intergovernmental organizations observers to the Council as well as the WTO Secretariat had been invited to provide information.

12.3. To date, the Council had received information from the following developed country Members: Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, the United States, and Norway (IP/C/W/610 and addenda). The report submitted by the European Union and individual member States, namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, had been made available as a room document on documents online and would also be circulated as an addendum to document IP/C/W/610.

12.4. The Council had received updated information from the following intergovernmental organizations: FAO, GCC, OECD, WCO, UNCTAD, WHO, UPOV, and WIPO (IP/C/W/609 and addenda). Updated information on the WTO Secretariat's own technical cooperation activities in the TRIPS area was circulated in document IP/C/W/608.

12.5. He said that these reports provided very valuable information both as regards details of specific activities, but also the broader policy considerations that were guiding capacity building activities of individual Members and Observers. Nevertheless, much of this resource remained largely untapped which might also be due to the amount of information provided and the way in which this was done. In order to promote awareness and transparency, the Secretariat had repeatedly suggested that the information about specific activities be reported in table format. It had also provided regular updates with respect to its work aimed at identifying ways of facilitating the submission, processing and circulation of information on technical assistance.

12.6. The representatives of the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and Ecuador took the floor.

12.7. The representative of the WTO Secretariat took the floor.

12.8. The representatives of the GCC, UNCTAD, WHO and WIPO took the floor.

12.9. The Chairman noted that some of the information had been received only very recently, and most of it was available only in its original language, and therefore proposed to provide Members an opportunity at the next meeting to make further comments on the information submitted for this meeting.

12.10. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.

IP/C/M/80, IP/C/M/80/Add.1