1  INTRODUCTION

1. This communication summarizes the technical cooperation activities of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the area of public health, innovation and intellectual property that have taken place since the last report in October 2018 (IP/C/W/644/Rev.1/Add.2). The overall objective of WHO's technical cooperation is to strengthen the capacity of developing countries in the areas of health innovation, access to medicines and management of intellectual property. WHO's technical cooperation is based on its mandate derived from the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (GSPoA) as well as other relevant resolutions of the World Health Assembly, including WHA72.8 on "Improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products."^[1]. Following discussions at its 142^nd session (2018), the WHO Executive Board recommended to the Seventy-first World Health Assembly implementation of the recommendations from an overall programme review of the GSPoA. The Seventy-first World Health Assembly decided to urge Member States to implement GSPoA-consistent recommendations of the review panel addressed to Member States while urging further discussion on recommendations not emanating from the GSPoA.^[2] An implementation plan is currently under development. As requested by the Seventy‑first World Health Assembly^[3], the Director-General presented a road map report to the Seventy-second World Health Assembly, outlining the programming of WHO's work on access to medicines and vaccines, including activities, actions and deliverables for the period 2019−2023.^[4]

^[1] WHA72.8 https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA72/A72_R8-en.pdf

^[2] WHA71(9) http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA71/A71(9)-en.pdf

^[3] WHA71(8) http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA71/A71(8)-en.pdf

^[4] A72/17. https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA72/A72_17-en.pdf