A group of developing countries has rejected the outcome of a recent meeting during which selected members of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) discussed the continuation of the global patent harmonisation process. The meeting, held in Casablanca, Morocco, had been put together at the invitation of WIPO Director-General Kamal Idris, and came up with an "action plan" on how to move forward on global patent harmonisation. Several developing countries and civil society organisations had criticised the 15-16 February gathering for its exclusionary nature (see BRIDGES Weekly, 23 February 2005). Brazil, the only supporter of the WIPO Development Agenda invited to attend the Casablanca meeting, was also the only country that refused to endorse the statement that was adopted there.

In direct response to the Casablanca meeting, the 'Group of Friends of Development' sent an official statement to the WIPO Secretariat on 7 March, formally challenging the legitimacy of the action plan that had been adopted there. Countries including Argentina, Egypt, Iran, and South Africa joined Brazil in signing the statement, which emphasised that decisions taken by WIPO's General Assembly must be taken transparently and multilaterally. The group's statement stressed that according to the General Assembly's mandate, informal consultations by the Director General should focus on establishing a date for convening the Standing Committee on Law of Patents. They argued that informal meetings cannot legitimately involve substantive discussions that go beyond the current state of negotiations in the General Assembly.

The next official meeting to discuss the WIPO Development Agenda will take place on 11-13 April 2005 at the Intersessional Intergovernmental Meeting at WIPO.

The Group of Friends of Development includes Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Venezuela.

ICTSD reporting.

UK TO DE-LINK TRADE CONDITIONALITY FROM FOREIGN AID

A new policy paper on foreign aid by the UK government has signalled that it will no longer attach policy conditions to overseas assistance, but will rather link aid flows to mutually agreed benchmarks on poverty reduction. The 2 March report, entitled "Partnerships for poverty reduction: rethinking conditionality," reviews the effectiveness of the terms and conditions that donors and recipients typically set out as part of aid agreements. It concludes that donor-imposed trade liberalisation requirements do not necessarily benefit poor people in recipient countries, and outlines the changes necessary to establish effective aid partnerships.

The paper points to concerns that aid-linked policy conditions requiring recipients to undertake unilateral trade liberalisation have affected their ability to effectively engage in multilateral trade negotiations. It also suggests that trade liberalisation conditions have often failed to take into account whether a recipient country is actually in a position to benefit from more open trade. The report also says that policy conditions have in the past neglected to take into account the ability of poor people in developing countries to access health and education, financial services, and infrastructure -- preconditions for them to benefit from trade liberalisation. Furthermore, trade conditions might prevent developing countries from using the sort of policy sequencing that has contributed to the successful economic performance of the East Asian economies over the last few decades.

The UK government states that it will switch to using benchmarks agreed by donors and recipient countries rather than policy conditions. It believes that this will ensure that aid supports developing countries' own poverty reduction policies. The report emphasises transparency on the part of donor and recipient states, as well as the need for donors to make aid flows more predictable. Finally, in an effort to promote coherence in international aid policymaking, the paper urges the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donor groups to review their policy with regards to conditionality and aid.

For the full report, see http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/conditionality.pdf.