Statement delivered by Alberic Kacou UN Resident Coordinator of Tanzania during the 2013 Annual Ministerial Review, Regional Preparatory Meeting for Africa on “Innovation as Enabler for the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development”
Thursday, 14 March 2013
• Representative of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania (to be nominated by the Govt.)
• H.E. Mr. Nestor Osorio, President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Permanent Representative of Columbia to the United Nations
• Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, Secretary- General for the International Conference on Small Island Developing States
• Mr. Francis Gurry, Director General, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
• Mr. Toshihiro Kose, Director General, Trademark, Design and Administrative Affairs Department, Japan Patent Office, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
• Honourable Ministers
• Ambassadors and Members of Diplomatic Corps
• Civil Society Organizations
• Members from the Media
• UN Colleagues, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the UN System in Tanzania, I would like to take this opportunity to once again welcome all the dignitaries to this August gathering. For the past two days knowledge has been flowing abundantly in this hall, sharing innovative ideas on Intellectual Property (IP), discussing challenges and benefits of adopting IP policies with the perspective of moving towards a qualitative and competitive international market.
We also heard from His Excellency President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of the United Republic of Tanzania, speaking at the opening of the WIPO Conference, that, proper use of intellectual property can contribute to economic development and the eradication of poverty in African countries. He said “IP policies should be integrated with development policies.” The President has appealed to the development partners “to explore the possibilities of increasing support to African countries in IP issues.” He stressed “IP issues should be regarded as development issues. They should not be dealt with in isolation.”
Indeed, science, technology and innovation can play a critical role in each and every MDG, including by:
• fostering access to knowledge;
• increasing productivity, industrialization, economic growth and the creation of decent jobs;
• promoting health and access to essential drugs;
• achieving food security through sustainable, equitable agricultural systems and by raising production and incomes, especially of smallholder farms;
• promoting renewable energy technologies in order to respond to the dual challenge of reducing energy poverty while mitigating climate change.
Focusing on science, technology and innovation is also an opportunity to follow up to the Rio +20 outcome, which will have a significant focus on green technologies. The recent developments in other parts of the world, in particular the spectacular rise of Asia and other emerging economies in the past two decades, is essentially a result of proper harnessing of the latent creative capacities for their populations. The dissemination of knowledge and use of technology has been widespread in these new development paradigms.
In this regard, the ECOSOC’s Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) Regional Preparatory Meeting for Africa around the theme, ‘Innovation as Enabler for the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development’ is very timely especially with the ongoing Post2015 dialogue in more than 50 countries now. Technological advancements could be a critical way forward to face the new development challenges in the Post 2015 period. This would also mean that we need to have innovative approaches to technology transfer, sharing knowledge and making use of them for the welfare of the majority of global citizens. But, this also requires a delicate balance between ensuring IPs and access to such new innovations by the masses.
The first day of WIPO Conference focussed internally on Africa and the second day focussed more on the perspective from Intellectual Property to innovation thereby opening up to the international scene which hopefully will now feed into the global ECOSOC review process and subsequently into a broader discussion on the post-2015 development agenda.
These three days can be regarded indeed as a valuable collaboration between different UN agencies to consider innovation across different sectors. Let us hope that in the coming days we will be able to see more progress taking place in terms of capacity building on IP Issues for a developing country like Tanzania and many African nations.
I reiterate my earlier statement that any discussion of innovation must include intellectual property, as Intellectual Property captures the value of innovation and converts ideas into tradable assets.
Finally, I would like to extend my best wishes for the deliberations and interesting round table discussions that will feed into the Key Policy Messages for the 2013 ECOSOC Annual Ministerial Review.
Thank you. Asanteni Sana.