PROGRAM 9 AFRICA, ARAB, ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES, LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

PROGRAM 9 AFRICA, ARAB, ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES, LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

OVERVIEW OF PROGRESS IN 2014

1. 
   In line with WIPO’s Strategic Goal III, facilitating the use of IP for social, cultural and economic development and empowering developing countries and LDCs to harness IP for enhancing national innovation potential and capacities continued to drive the work of the Program in 2014. Serving as the primary interface between the beneficiary Member States and the various Programs of WIPO, Program 9 continued to ensure country-specific, needs-based, coherent and well-coordinated delivery of technical assistance throughout the year. Overall, the design, planning and implementation of technical cooperation activities were informed and guided by the relevant DA Recommendations, in particular the Recommendations under Cluster A on WIPO’s technical assistance and capacity building. Also in line with the DA Recommendations, delivery of development-oriented activities to developing countries and LDCs continued to be mainstreamed across the various specialized Programs of the Organization in 2014 to further strengthen WIPO’s technical cooperation.
   

2. 
   In 2014, existing partnerships with sub-regional/regional and multilateral institutions were further strengthened, and exchanges of experiences and expertise among countries in the different regions and through horizontal cooperation, with the aim of enhancing synergies for greater development results, continued to be fostered. In May 2014, a new MoU was signed with l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
   

3. 
   WIPO continued to assist developing countries and LDCs in the design, development and implementation of National IP Strategies that are both consistent with their overall development plans and able to foster innovation and creativity. The application of the standardized, yet flexible, methodology and set of practical tools for the formulation of national IP strategies and plans, developed as part of the DA project on Improvement of National, Sub-regional and Regional IP Institutional and User Capacity in 2012, continued to guide the process. As a result, nine countries (six in Africa, two in Asia and the Pacific and one in Latin America and the Caribbean), initiated the process of formulating national IP strategies/development plans, and 18 countries (six in Africa, three in the Arab region, four in Asia and the Pacific, and five in Latin America and the Caribbean) were still in the process of formulation and/or adoption at the end of 2014. At the end of 2014, national IP strategies/development plans had been adopted and/or were under implementation in a total of 37 countries (21 in Africa, two in the Arab region, eight in Asia and the Pacific and six in Latin America and the Caribbean), of which 17 in LDCs.
   

4. 
   In October 2014, one focal point from each of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries participated in a brainstorming workshop for the development of the ASEAN IPR Strategic Plan for 2016-2025, in line with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2016- 2025 strategy. This collaboration represented the first time that WIPO had been so extensively involved in assisting a regional group in the formulation of a comprehensive regional IP framework.
   

5. 
   The Program continued to coordinate and facilitate technical assistance to developing countries and LDCs in formulating and modernizing legislation in the field of IP, taking into account specific national requirements and international flexibilities. To enable Member States to make more informed choices as regards WIPO’s priority areas, the Manual on Delivery of WIPO Technical Assistance (finalized in 2013) was published in all six official UN languages in 2014 and made available online²² (for more details see Programs 1, 2, 3 and 4).
   

6. 
   Enhancing human resource capabilities to deal with the broad range of requirements for the effective use of IP for development and fostering innovation and creativity remained a priority in 2014. Focused capacity building and skills development programs were delivered to specific target groups such as government officials, policy-makers, IP professionals, enforcement officials, researchers and academics, entrepreneurs and industrialists, as well as SMEs, at the national, sub-regional and regional levels.
   

7. 
   In 2014, WIPO continued to strengthen its assistance to IP Offices in developing countries and LDCs to enable them to provide cost-effective and high-quality IP modernization and technical infrastructure services to their stakeholders, creating a more favorable environment for the effective use of IP information, particularly by the institutions in charge of the administration of IP rights, the national innovation system and the productive sector. By the end of 2014, some 62 Offices were using WIPO IP Office Systems in the different regions: 19 in Africa, 14 in the Arab region, 13 in Asia and the Pacific and 16 in Latin America and the Caribbean (for more details see Program 15)
   

8. 
   Facilitating access to global technology information databases also remained a high priority. In 2014, increased emphasis was placed on strengthening existing Technology Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) with a view to long-term sustainability. Out of the 39 established TISCs, some 19 were considered sustainable in 2014: nine in Africa (of which six in LDCs); two in the Arab region; three in Asia and the Pacific (of which one in an LDC); and five in Latin America and the Caribbean (for more details see Program 14).
   

9. 
   In 2014, the Program facilitated and internally coordinated the accession of several countries and regional groups to treaties and conventions administrated by WIPO: two in Africa (OAPI and Zimbabwe) and two in the Arab region (Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates).
   

10. 
    With a view to instilling a cohesive, development-oriented and innovation enabling architecture in LDCs, greater focus was given in 2014 to the implementation of the WIPO Deliverables, a set of priority thematic areas for cooperation with LDCs as identified by LDC ministers on the occasion of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (UN LDC IV). An inter-regional cooperation partnership program was implemented for LDCs with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and the United Nations Industrial Development organization (UNIDO) on July 29, 2014 at the Ministerial Conference on New Partnerships for Productive Capacity Building in LDCs in Cotonou, Benin on the theme “Innovation, Creativity, Technology, Broadband Connectivity and Financing as Vectors for Sustainable Development for LDCs”.
    

11. 
    Following the successful completion of Phase I of the DA Project on Capacity Building in the Use of Appropriate Technology-Specific Technical and Scientific Information as a Solution for Identified Development Challenges, Phase II (CDIP/13/9) was approved at the thirteenth session of this CDIP in May, 2014. Important progress was made during the remainder of the year with regard to establishing MoUs clearly identifying the responsibilities of the partners, i.e., WIPO and the beneficiary country (an LDC), in the overall implementation process of the project. Consultations with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Science and Technology, Permanent Missions in Geneva, and the IP focal points were held with the four beneficiary countries. The MoUs are expected to be signed in 2015.
    

12. 
    The Project on Enhancing South-South Cooperation on IP and Development among Developing Countries and LDCs was completed and evaluated in 2014. The Committee at its thirteenth session agreed to extend the duration of the Project for one year to allow for the completion of the outstanding activities within the remaining project budget. In May 2014, the South-South webpage²³, which was completed at the end of 2013, was officially launched. Amongst other useful information and tools, the webpage features customized South-South web platforms- South-South Technical Assistance (South-South IP-TAD) and Roster of Consultants (South-South IP-ROC) to highlight relevant information on technical assistance activities where both the beneficiary country(ies) and the host country/provider were a developing country, LDC, or a country in transition and experts and resource persons in developing countries, LDCs and countries in transition, respectively.
    

13. 
    The Program also continued to capitalize on the experience of protecting and branding origin-based products in selected developing countries, stemming from the implementation of the DA Project on IP and Product Branding for Business Development in Developing and Least Developed Countries, completed in 2013. In this context, the focus in 2014 was on conducting specialized training courses in order to enhance stakeholders’ capacities to develop the full brand and market potential of selected origin-linked products. To complement WIPO’s work in this area the Program collaborated with international and regional partners, notably in the Caribbean region, to address the full range of stakeholder training needs.
    

14. 
    Specialized databases continued to be used to support the delivery of technical assistance, in particular the databases on IP Technical Assistance (IP-TAD) and the Roster of Consultants (IP-ROC), including the interfaces to store information on South-South cooperation, and the IP Development Matchmaking Database (IP-DMD). The year 2014 also saw the deployment of the specialized National IP Strategy Database (NIPS-D)²⁴, which was developed in 2013 to capture relevant data for the baseline assessment phase of national IP strategies development, as necessitated by the increasing number of countries using the WIPO methodology to develop IP strategies. In an effort to maximize the potential of these databases, their usage was closely monitored in 2014, and user-feedback collected to glean insights into further enhancing the systems with a view to making them more user friendly, as well as to identifying more strategic approaches for promoting their uses in different countries. With respect to IP-DMD, a targeted outreach plan to bolster uploads and catalyze matches in the database was also under development in 2014.
    

PERFORMANCE DATA

RESOURCE UTILIZATION

Budget and Actual Expenditure (personnel and non-personnel)

15. 
    The shift in resources between the Expected Results reflects enhanced focus on the facilitation and coordination of: (i) WIPO’s legislative advice activities in the area of patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright (reflected under Expected Result I.2); (ii) WIPO activities on the access to and use of IP information through the increased number of sustainable national TISC networks (reflected under Expected Result IV.2) and (iii) efforts to assist IP Offices and other IP institutions to develop their technical and knowledge infrastructure (reflected under Expected Result IV.4).
    

B. Budget Utilization 2014/15

16. 
    The lower than anticipated utilization rate of non-personnel resources was primarily due to the postponement or cancellation of certain planned events/activities at the request of certain Member States or in compliance with UN security guidelines.