185. The delegation of Benin would like thank all the developed and developing partners who by various initiatives are trying to encourage transfer of technology to LDCs. We really would like to express our appreciation to them, but also to say that we can do better than what has been done up until now.
186. Bangladesh and Haiti have clearly highlighted that for 15 years we have received reports consisting of thousands of pages, we have each time had to go through all of these reports and we should recall that, in 2016 and 2017, we did highlight that there were many items in the reports where there was mention of cases of developing countries, namely that middle-income countries or even higher-income countries appeared in the reports as beneficiaries of projects targeting technology transfer.
187. This poses a problem for us as LDCs and we have requested that these reports be targeted. Haiti has tried to demonstrate earlier that this targeting would allow us to identify exactly what the specific projects are looking to LDCs which would allow for the transfer of know-how and technology that we do not possess and to also to know how viable this transfer of technology and know-how is to LDCs. Here we completely agree with the European Union, where they have highlighted that an environment should be established with infrastructure, absorption capacity, know-how and transfer of technology, and we also agree with Japan, where they have stated that this should be a healthy environment established with regard to regulatory and administrative capacity. This should be established and strengthened and this could go some way to responding to the United States to ensure that technology that is transferred is secured. We agree that this is part of the incentive that we are speaking about. The incentive has to be upstream and downstream, on the LDC-side, putting into place the capacity building capacity of LDCs, training personnel on the ground. You can take ownership of this know-how effectively and take ownership effectively of this technology that is transferred, but then on the other side, there is also an important incentive to grant and it is to this that we are referring to in our second point, looking to what is the specific content behind the concept of an incentive. What specifically are we doing is being done by our developed and developing partners who are able to do so. What are they doing to allow their enterprises in the private sector who have developed in hold this technology they to be able to voluntarily transfer this technology and knowhow which is essential for the development of LDCs.
188. I would like to give an example, which comes under the Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD). This saw the establishment of a triangular partnership environment for the development and the production of rice. This partnership, for example, allowed a developed country, Japan in particular, to place finance at their disposal, but the implementation project had to be done by a country which had proven technology for the production at scale of rice. When that country was chosen by call for tender, it was clearly stated in the terms for the implementation of the project that she must be in a position to state that you have transferred technology to African countries, and what we call "Africa Rice".
189. Currently, all African countries beneficiaries of this project are capable of producing and increasing their production by hectare in the rice sector. And today, the African continent in less than 15 years has been able to more than double its rice production. This is a concrete example, and it is what we are asking for, we are not asking for a miracle, we are not asking for the private sector to be forced to transfer, we are not asking for enterprises to be obliged, but setting up these incentives consist of leading these companies to develop and possess technology to do so via contracts, via concrete projects to incentivise them to do this.
190. A second example is the case of South Korea. In order to develop the TGV in South Korea, they did not have the technology there for high-speed trains. There were two service providers in place who declared that they stood ready to construct and provide high-speed trains for South Korea. South Korea chose one over the other because France which was the second was ready to transfer technology when constructing. Now South Korea has become a constructor and that is what we want. It is examples like that which are so important to highlight to allow our developed and developing partners to know that there is a way of encouraging technology transfer and we have to reflect on this as Switzerland has stated. We have to reflect on how we can transfer via start-ups, via SMEs, via projects with the private sector from developed countries or developing countries in a position to do so. Where they can develop these projects in LDCs and say to enterprises if you want to do this, if you accept these conditions, we would choose you. But at the end of the project you have to be in a position to transfer the technology and that is what we are asking for. And we hope that precise, targeted debates can take place to really allow LDCs to access to technology and to really be able to boost their development.
