Setting up an intergovernmental working group
An intergovernmental working group on public health and intellectual property, which the World Health Assembly said in May should be set up “immediately”, is scheduled to meet for the first time in December in Geneva.
According to Intellectual Property Watch, a senior WHO official said that the six regional WHO committees now will discuss ’how to go about’ setting up the group, both in terms of who will be part of it and what the substance will be. It is no easy task for the World Health Organization (WHO) to coordinate the matter.
While the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) mandated the WHO to manage the group, it also said that other stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations should be involved, and the pharmaceutical industry also has showed a strong interest in the WHO’s work on intellectual property (IP).
It is not yet known who will head the group.
How did this intergovernmental group arise?
The May resolution of the WHA mandating the intergovernmental group is entitled: “Public health, innovation, essential health research and intellectual property rights: towards a global strategy and plan of action” - available here (Agenda item 11.11).
The resolution mandated the establishment of an “intergovernmental working group open to all interested member states to draw up a global strategy and plan of action in order to provide a medium-term framework”.
The May agreement merges one resolution based on the recommendations of the WHO Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), and another resolution calling for a new global framework for research and development put forward by Brazil and Kenya.
The global strategy and plan of action of the intergovernmental working group aims to secure research and development of medicines, as well as estimates for what kind of funding would be needed, for diseases that “disproportionately affect developing countries” or that are neglected.
All member states will be able to attend the December meeting, but it is still to be decided whether other stakeholders, such as NGOs, will be able to attend despite being specified in the resolution.
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