WIPO’s Assistance To Developing Countries: Taking Forward The Unfinished Reform Agenda
At this week’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), WIPO Member States continue to debate next steps on the unprecedented 2011 External Review of WIPO’s assistance to developing countries. With a new Deputy Director General for the WIPO’s Development Sector due to start work this December, GEG's Carolyn Deere Birkbeck argues that the prospect of new leadership also marks a time for Members to provide clear direction. She proposes that WIPO Member States should act this week and in the coming months to set clear priorities for the Secretariat – and for themselves – that would give greater focus to the ongoing work of improving WIPO’s development cooperation activities, and to establish a mechanism for monitoring progress.
