E-DRUG: Webinar: TRIPS flexibilities in Africa: are countries equipped to protect public health, 30 April
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Apologies for possible duplicates and cross-posting*
Dear all,
We would like to invite you to the next webinar of the series organized by
the Knowledge Network for Innovation and Access to Medicines, a project of
the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, which will
take place on Thursday, April 30, 4-5 pm CEST/SAST.
We hope you will be able to join us for this discussion. The webinar will
be recorded and made available a few days after it takes place. A list of
the previous webinars of the series and their recordings and related
materials is available at: https://www.knowledgeportalia.org/webinars
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TRIPS flexibilities in Africa: are countries equipped to protect public health?
Thursday, April 30, 4pm - 5pm CEST / SAST
To join the webinar, please register here:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/4615871253791/WN_yQdi7tCFTtqVGbfEkekPqA
Speaker:
Yousuf Vawda, Senior Research Associate, School of Law, University of
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Discussant:
Lynette Mabote, Lead Consultant, Southern African Programme on Access to
Medicines and Diagnostics (SAPAM)
Research papers:
Yousuf A Vawda and Bonginkosi Shozi. Eighteen Years After Doha: An Analysis
of the Use of Public Health TRIPS Flexibilities in Africa. South Centre
Research Paper 103. February 2020.
https://www.southcentre.int/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/RP103_Eighteen-Years-After-Doha-An-Analysis-of-the-Use-of-Public-HealthTRIPS-Flexibilities-in-Africa_EN.pdf
Essential Guide. Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medicines in
Southern and East Africa. ARASA.
https://www.arasa.info/media/arasa/Resources/user%20manuals/ip-toolkit-guide-1-2-print-edition.pdf
International law requires countries to adopt minimum standards of
intellectual property protection, while also allowing them to adopt
measures to protect public health and to promote the public interest. The
World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) contains a number of provisions that
can be used for that purpose, which became known as TRIPS flexibilities, a
right reinforced by the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public
Health adopted in 2001. The actual use of those measures depends on a
series of factors, beginning with their adoption into national laws and
policies.
Prof. Yousuf Vawda will present an outline of a recently-published paper
with a comprehensive overview of the legal and policy frameworks with
regard to TRIPS flexibilities and their use to enable access to medicines
in selected African countries. He will then make recommendations for
optimising the use of the flexibilities to protect public health and
analyse the extent to which African countries are equipped to use those
measures, including for health emergencies such as the current COVID-19
pandemic.
Lynette Mabote will discuss the subject, providing a regional perspective from efforts by civil society organisations from Sub-Saharan Africa working to advance access to medicines in the region including through reforms in national and regional laws to incorporate the use of TRIPS flexibilities.
The webinar is free and open to the public and will be conducted in
English. Participants can pose questions orally or in writing, and the
speaker will respond to a selection of these during the second half of the
event.
Recordings of all webinars are made available at the Knowledge
Portal on Innovation and Access to Medicines. After registering, you will
receive a confirmation email with additional information on how to join the
webinar using the Zoom platform.
This event is part of the webinar series of the Knowledge Network for Innovation and Access to Medicines, a project of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute, Geneva.
Marcela Vieira
Researcher and Project Coordinator of the
Knowledge Network for Innovation and Access to Medicines
https://www.knowledgeportalia.org/
Global Health Centre, Research
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
marcela.vieira@graduateinstitute.ch