I extend my warm thanks to Director General Francis Gurry, for the opportunity to take part in this conference organized in preparation for the UN LDC‑IV conference to be held in May in Istanbul.  I heartily endorse the theme of “building a knowledge base for innovation and creativity to promote development.”  I would like to set the context for your discussions by emphasizing two fundamental policy concerns,

• First, 'the underlying public policy objectives of national systems for the protection of intellectual property, including developmental and technological objectives'

• Second, 'the special needs of the least-developed countr[ies] … in respect of maximum flexibility in the domestic implementation of laws and regulations in order to enable them to create a sound and viable technological base;

These concerns are at the heart of our discussions today, and rightly so — the IP system is a tool of public policy and needs to be implemented to promote economic and social development;  and the specific challenges faced by LDCs calls for a flexible approach, with an emphasis on building up their technological capacity. This is exactly the knowledge base for innovation and capacity that forms the theme of today's forum.

Such concerns are indeed integral to our mandate as the WTO Secretariat.  In fact I have quoted these words directly from the preamble of the TRIPS Agreement itself.  These interests are therefore hard-wired into the legal framework of the WTO.  And they find direct imprint in the operational paragraphs of TRIPS — including a firm legal obligation on developed countries to provide incentives for technology transfer to LDCs, and a flexible timeframe for LDCs to implement TRIPS standards. 

We have a significant responsibility —shared with our colleagues in WIPO - to ensure that these are not just fine words but inspire action and guide practical programs.  The story of TRIPS implementation to promote LDC's particular development needs and priorities is still unfolding, and has not yet come to the final chapter, but let me review the progress made so far. 

31 LDCs are Members of the WTO, over 20% of our membership. 12 more are in the process of acceding.  Thanks to some able and hardworking diplomats, their voice is a strong and effective one in all of our activities, including on issues on IP and TRIPS covered in current negotiations and consultations.  The chair of the TRIPS Special Session is the highly respected head of the Zambian delegation.  LDC delegations have most effectively pursued their interests on issues of particular concern such as access to medicines, as well as advancing substantive work on the two tailored mechanisms established under TRIPS for these countries, namely

• the extended period for implementing TRIPS, under Article 66.1, with emphasis on creating a viable technological base, and
• the developed countries' obligation to provide incentives to promote and encourage technology transfer to LDCs, under Article 66.2.

LDCs were originally due to implement TRIPS by January 2006, but in 2005 the TRIPS Council extended this period to mid-2013, recognizing the economic, financial and administrative constraints that LDCs continued to face.  This decision also recognized the continuing need for technical and financial cooperation to enable LDCs to realize cultural, social, technological and other developmental objectives of IP protection. 
Hence the 2005 decision called for enhanced technical co-operation:

• First, LDCs were asked to provide as much information as possible on what they needed as a priority for technical and financial assistance, to help them to implement TRIPS. The emphasis lay on individual priority needs and interests, so that the assistance given truly responds to countries' own actual needs and priorities, and appropriately recognizes the diversity of the LDC members.
• Second, developed countries were asked to provide technical and financial help to LDCs effectively to address those identified needs. Donors and countries or organizations providing technical assistance therefore share responsibility for making the process work. The whole process remains demand-driven, centred on the actual requirements each LDC has identified.
• Finally, the WTO was asked to enhance its cooperation with WIPO and with other relevant international organizations, an obligation on us that we are pleased and eager to follow through.

This process is crucially important.  We need not merely to devote sufficient effort to this activity, but also consciously to address a shared responsibility to enhance program coordination.  After all, the beneficial effect of technical cooperation comes not from the sheer scale of resources provided, but rather from how well they are coordinated and how effectively they are tailored to meet the express needs and priorities of the country concerned.  This process is typically referred to as a “needs assessment” process — but that term can be misleading.  It should more accurately be termed a needs communication and needs fulfilment process, supported by substantially improved coordination among the resource providers.  It is not conceived as a stand alone process, nor one that would compete or conflict with other valuable work to support the IP.  Therefore, the work that has been done already in WIPO to support LDCs in establishing their development needs can and should be fully recognized and acknowledged in this process.

At the request of LDC Members, we have recently conducted a series of regional workshops to strengthen coordination and the pooling of experience on communicating and fulfilling LDC needs.  WIPO has been a valued partner in this effort.  This series is due to reach its logical culmination later this year with a Geneva-based workshop that will bring together key players to harvest the experience to date with LDC needs assessments and to char the way ahead. 

Finally, the WTO, in co-operation with WIPO and several other international organizations, launched a few months ago the GTAD, a joint technical assistance database. The GTAD was developed with a view to ensuring more coherence in the design and implementation of technical assistance programmes with partner agencies, beneficiary and donor stakeholders. I encourage you to use this database to structure your own domestic programmes in the field of IP.  

The second area of activity of specific interest for LDCs is the work on incentives for technology transfer, a concrete obligation under TRIPS.  Following a decision at the Ministerial Conference in Doha, the WTO has put in place a mechanism for ensuring the monitoring and full implementation of these obligations. This has produced a massive amount of data about the incentives provided by a wide range of developed countries — so much so that analysing and interpreting these notifications has become a major challenge in itself, and the LDC countries have worked with developed countries to analyse this rich vein of information more systematically, and to discuss how to improve the reporting format.  This is still work in progress — so watch this space as I am convinced that we will come away from this review process with a much richer understanding of the multifaceted character of technology transfer and a better grasp of the kind of incentives that are needed especially for the benefit of LDCs.

Threaded through all this work are some crucial common themes:

• an emphasis on the individual priority needs of LDCs themselves, not prescriptions of what others feel LDCs should want
• an evolving idea of implementing TRIPS that progresses beyond mere formal compliance with legal standards and situates implementation in the broader context of identifying and responding to priority needs
• building a stronger base of practical information about the diverse range of experience established in the 15 years since TRIPS entered into force, and founding further cooperation on the lessons of this experience
• creating the viable technological base proposed in TRIPS and the knowledge base for innovation and creativity that forms today's theme, so that the IP system forms part of the development infrastructure for LDCs
• stronger, more systematic coordination of efforts to empower LDC policymakers to use the IP system as a true tool for sustainable development. 
• Importance of regional integration processes for establishing IP systems at the relevant level.

I look forward to continuing the practical dialogue and the close and cordial cooperation with LDC governments and with our host today, our valued long term partner, WIPO. 

Thank you