Meetings of the Assemblies of WIPO Member States - 2008 Report
Topped by the appointment of Mr. Francis Gurry as the next Director General of the Organization, the WIPO Assemblies met in September to review the past year's activities and discuss the Organization's future work program. The General Assembly Chairman, Ambassador Martin I. Uhomoibhi, Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, underlined the success of this year's session in his concluding remarks, noting that Member States were united by the vision set out in Mr. Gurry's acceptance speech (see page 6) of an Organization getting to grips with the big issues and fulfilling its role as the "pre-eminent forum for intellectual property discourse".
Mr. Gurry, an Australian, was appointed as Director General for a six-year term that began on October 1 and will run through September 2014. In unanimously appointing Mr. Gurry, WIPO Member States put regional differences behind them to focus on the future health of the Organization and achieved, in the words of Ambassador Uhomoibhi, "a seamlessly smooth, harmonious transition" that Mr. Gurry said "would provide a good basis to tackle all the challenges of the future".
Member States took stock of the work of the CDIP which, in the two formal meetings held in March and July, had considered 15 of the 45 recommendations in the WIPO Development Agenda and expressed the need for mechanisms to facilitate coordination with other WIPO bodies so as to ensure effective implementation.
The General Assembly approved the work program for implementing the five costed recommendations from a list of 26 requiring additional resources. Member States agreed to make resources available to the Secretariat in line with WIPO's program and budget process.
The General Assembly approved the start of consultations for the convening of a donor conference in 2009 to help mobilize additional resources, by encouraging the establishment of trust funds or other voluntary funds, specifically for least developed countries (LDCs), while continuing to accord high priority to financing activities in Africa. The aim would be to promote the legal, commercial, cultural and economic exploitation of IP in these countries. The conference would also seek to improve the mobilization, coordination and management of extra-budgetary resources at WIPO, through an exchange of ideas and best practices.
The General Assembly decided that the November 2008 session of the SCCR would continue to discuss the protection of broadcasting organizations and cable-casting organizations, based on an informal paper by the Chair, outlining his understanding of the main positions and of the divergences to be addressed.
At the March 2008 meeting of the Committee, Member States had expressed a willingness to find a way forward on the protection of audiovisual performances. In light of this, WIPO had been requested to prepare a summary of recent activities and the positions of the members of the SCCR.
WIPO had organized a number of national and regional seminars in Africa, Asia and Latin America to...
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