South Centre participates in Workshop on "Strategies to Implement the WIPO Development Agenda"

Dr. Xuan Li, Lead Economist and Acting Coordinator, IAKP, South Centre, was a panelist at the Workshop on "Strategies to Implement the WIPO Development Agenda" during the EDGE Annual Conference on 15 Oct 2007 in Vancouver, Canada.

Dr. Li offered interdisciplinary perspectives on how to implement WIPO Development Agenda. She provided an analysis of the obstacles from both international and national level: (i) At the international level, poor governance of WIPO, disconnection between Geneva-based delegate and capitals, lack of empirical study. (ii) At the national level, institutional, conceptual and methodological obstacles potentially impede the implementation of WIPO development agenda.

Background of the workshop: On 28 Sep 2007, the members of the WIPO formally adopted a Development Agenda. The General Assembly accepted the 45 recommendations made in June of this year by the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to the WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA). WIPO members agreed to immediately implement 19 of the 45 recommendations, which were seen to not require additional human or financial resources.