WHO, WIPO, WTO Workshop on access, use of information resources for COVID-19 response (28 February 2022)
Participants from across the world joined a workshop held by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) on accessing and using information resources for the response to COVID-19 on 28 February. The purpose of the workshop was to enhance understanding of the characteristics, potential uses and limitations of particular information sources related to the pandemic.
The first session discussed how a range of WTO, WHO and WIPO COVID-19-related resources can support their members in addressing, and recovering from, the pandemic.
The second session featured speakers from UNICEF, the World Bank Group, FIND (the global alliance for diagnostics), the Graduate Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the Global Health Innovation Alliance Accelerator. Speakers highlighted practical ways in which stakeholders can understand and use the information resources and available data for COVID-19 response efforts.
Points raised for future consideration included the connection of various data resources, the importance of coherent information across resources, the utility of expanding resources to include data related to other diseases and how to leverage or improve resources to prepare for future pandemics.
The event is part of the existing collaboration framework between the three organizations, as first highlighted by their Directors-General on 15 June 2021. WIPO Director General Daren Tang, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala agreed that the three agencies will collaborate on the organization of practical capacity-building workshops at the technical level to enhance the flow of updated information on current developments in the pandemic and responses to achieve equitable access to COVID-19 health technologies.
The trilateral collaboration was further reaffirmed at a meeting on 1 February 2022, where the heads of the three organizations committed to working closely together to help overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating human, social and economic impacts.
The video of the session, programme, speakers' biographies and background materials are available from the meeting webpage here.
WHO, WIPO, WTO Workshop on Innovation in, and Access to, COVID-19 Technologies – Virtual (27 September 2021)
The capacity-building activity was conceived to help members update their knowledge and understanding of how intellectual property (IP), know-how and technology transfer work in practice. The activity was agreed in a 15 June 2021 meeting among the Directors General of WHO, WIPO and the WTO, in which they underscored their commitment to universal, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other health technologies.
In three panels, speakers addressed the following themes: realizing global equitable access for vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and other COVID-19 health technologies; mechanisms and processes to support technology transfer and IP licensing; and enabling factors and policies for technology transfer.
Antony Taubman, Director of the IP, Government Procurement and Competition Division at the WTO, recognized the urgency and need for progress in access to health technologies as well as a more robust, focused support system.
More than 200 participants from a broad range of members of WHO, WIPO and the WTO participated in this training activity.
WHO, WIPO, WTO heads chart future cooperation on pandemic response (1 February 2022)
The Directors-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the WTO met on 1 February to chart future directions for trilateral cooperation in support of an effective global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A joint news item is below.
Joint news item
The Directors-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) today reaffirmed their commitment to working closely together to help overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating human, social, and economic impacts.
Meeting in Geneva on 1 February, 2022, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WIPO Director General Daren Tang and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala reviewed progress made on the initiatives announced in their joint statement of 15 June 2021, pledging cooperation on COVID-19-related medical technologies and charting future directions for their organizations’ trilateral cooperation to ensure it continues to address the evolving needs of people across the globe.
They welcomed the impending launch of a trilateral technical assistance platform, which will provide a one-stop shop making available the three organizations’ expertise to governments in a tailored and coordinated way so as best to respond to individual national needs for COVID-19 health technologies. This will include support for the full use of legal and policy options for access to health technologies, including through the implementation of any solution to the COVID-19-related intellectual property proposals currently before the WTO’s TRIPS Council.
The three Directors-General reviewed the series of technical capacity building workshops planned , starting with a workshop held in September 2021 that focused on intellectual property licensing and technology transfer along with the sharing of know-how and clinical trial information. An event later this month will seek to support policymakers to more effectively use data to inform their pandemic policy choices, and a subsequent workshop will address challenges of access relating to diagnostic technologies.
The Directors-General welcomed the ongoing efforts by their three organizations to make up-to-date information available, including the series of joint COVID-19 information notes, supplementing and updating the 2020 joint publication “Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation”.
Finally, the three Directors-General confirmed that they would convene a high-level policy symposium in the early summer on the COVID-19 pandemic, taking stock of COVID-19 challenges and focusing on what is needed to recover from this health crisis and better prepare for future ones.
The Directors-General concluded their meeting in a spirit of solidarity and practical determination to spare no effort to address the continuing scourge of the pandemic, and to mobilise the necessary knowledge resources and support so that no country would be left behind.
WHO, WIPO, WTO map out further collaboration to tackle COVID-19 pandemic (15 June 2021)
The Directors-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the WTO agreed to enhance their support to members battling COVID-19 by collaborating on a series of workshops to augment the flow of information on the pandemic and by implementing a joint platform for tripartite technical assistance to member governments relating to their needs for medical technologies. As a result of their meeting on 15 June, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Daren Tang and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala issued a joint statement.
Joint statement: Directors-General of WHO, WIPO and the WTO agree on intensified cooperation in support of access to medical technologies worldwide to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic
On 15 June 2021, we, the Directors-General of WHO, WIPO and the WTO, met in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity to map out further collaboration to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and the pressing global challenges at the intersection of public health, intellectual property and trade. Acutely conscious of our shared responsibility to communities across the world as they confront a health crisis of unprecedented severity and scale, we pledged to bring the full extent of the expertise and resources of our respective institutions to bear in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and improving the health and well-being of all people, everywhere around the globe.
We underscored our commitment to universal, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other health technologies — a commitment anchored in the understanding that this is an urgent moral imperative in need of immediate practical action.
In this spirit, we agreed to build further on our long-standing commitment to WHO-WIPO-WTO Trilateral Cooperation that aims to support and assist all countries as they seek to assess and implement sustainable and integrated solutions to public health challenges. Within this existing cooperative framework, we agreed to enhance and focus our support in the context of the pandemic through two specific initiatives.
First, our three agencies will collaborate on the organization of practical, capacity-building workshops to enhance the flow of updated information on current developments in the pandemic and responses to achieve equitable access to COVID-19 health technologies. The aim of these workshops is to strengthen the capacity of policymakers and experts in member governments to address the pandemic accordingly. The first workshop in the series will be a workshop on technology transfer and licensing, scheduled for September. The workshop will help our members update their knowledge and understanding of how intellectual property, know-how and technology transfer work in actuality. This would be in the context of medical technologies and related products and services. This first workshop will be followed by others on related practical themes.
Secondly, we will implement a joint platform for tripartite technical assistance to countries relating to their needs for COVID-19 medical technologies, providing a one-stop shop that will make available the full range of expertise on access, IP and trade matters provided by our organizations, and other partners, in a coordinated and systematic manner. The platform for technical assistance will, in particular:
- support countries to assess and prioritize unmet needs for COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and related technologies, and
- provide timely and tailored technical assistance in making full use of all available options to access vaccines, medicines and technologies, including through coordination between members facing similar challenges to facilitate collective responses.
These initiatives will also be underpinned by our joint efforts to collect and make accessible robust and inclusive data needed to guide an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will include a periodical update of the overview of COVID-19-related measures that are mapped in a key resource for trilateral cooperation, the WHO-WIPO-WTO publication “Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade”, published in 2020.
Background
The World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have, since 2009, stepped up their cooperation and practical coordination on issues relating to public health, IP and trade. This trilateral cooperation is intended to enhance the empirical and factual information basis for policy makers and to support them in addressing public health in relation to IP and trade. It has entailed a series of practical technical assistance activities, at the national, regional and mulitilateral levels, a series of high-level Policy Symposia intended to track emerging issues and inform future policy, and the trilateral study, which provides a comprehensive overview of the full array of policy issues with bearing on innovation and access to medical technologies.
Information resources
WHO-WIPO-WTO COVID-19 Technical Assistance Platform provides a one-stop shop that will make available the full range of expertise of the three organizations, and other partners, regarding the interface of public health, IP and trade matters in a coordinated and systematic manner.
