The Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP), established by the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in October 2007, held its first meeting from March 3 to 7, 2008 and moved forward in discussing the implementation of the WIPO Development Agenda (summary by the Chair below). The meeting, which was attended by 100 member states, 7 inter-governmental organizations and 30 non-governmental organizations, adopted the rules of procedure of the CDIP and held detailed discussions on developing a work program for implementation of the recommendations approved by the General Assembly.

Member states established the CDIP in 2007 to, inter alia, develop a work-program for implementation of recommendations adopted in relation to the WIPO Development Agenda. The CDIP is also mandated to monitor, assess, discuss and report on the implementation of all recommendations adopted, by coordinating with relevant WIPO bodies and to discuss IP and development-related issues as agreed by the Committee and decided by the General Assembly. The Committee is made up of member states, and is open to all accredited intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The CDIP elected Ambassador C. Trevor Clarke, Permanent Representative of Barbados, as Chair, and Mr. Muratbek Azymbakiev, Deputy Permanent Representative of Kyrgyzstan, and Mr. Javier Alfonso Moreno Ramos, Director of the Department of Legal Coordination and International Relations of the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office, as Vice-Chairs.

With a view to advancing its work, the CDIP agreed to a methodology, according to which the adopted recommendations would be addressed one by one. The 45 recommendations adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 are divided into six clusters, namely: Cluster A: Technical Assistance and Capacity Building; Cluster B: Norm-setting, Flexibilities, Public Policy and Public Domain; Cluster C: Technology Transfer, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Access to Knowledge; Cluster D: Assessments, Evaluation and Impact Studies; Cluster E: Institutional Matters Including Mandate and Governance; and Cluster F: Others.  These include 19 recommendations for immediate implementation by WIPO and 26 for which the CDIP is required to develop a work program. 

At its first session, the CDIP discussed adopted recommendations 2, 5, 8, 9 and 10 in the list of 26 and agreed that the proposed activities, as suitably modified following discussions, would be sent to the secretariat to assess the human and financial resource requirements, before the next session. In addition, the CDIP reviewed and commented on activities being implemented under adopted recommendation 1 in the list of 19, suggested changes and considered new activities. It was agreed that the secretariat would make the necessary modification and furnish a progress report on the adopted recommendations in the list of 19 for the next session of the Committee. 

The draft report of the CDIP's first meeting will available on WIPO's website for comments by member states, IGOs and NGOs. The revised draft report will then be considered for adoption at the beginning of the second session of the CDIP scheduled for July 2008.

A proposal for a development agenda for WIPO was first launched at the 2004 WIPO General Assembly. At that time, member states agreed to hold a series of inter-sessional intergovernmental meetings (IIMs) to examine proposals originally submitted by Brazil and Argentina as well as additional proposals of other member states. Accordingly, three sessions of the IIM on a Development Agenda for WIPO were organized in 2005 in which eight papers containing wide-ranging proposals were presented.  As part of that decision, WIPO also hosted an international seminar on intellectual property and development, which was open to all stakeholders, including NGOs, civil society and academia, in May 2005. In order to accelerate and complete discussions on proposals submitted, the 2005 session of the WIPO General Assembly, agreed to establish a Provisional Committee on Proposals for a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA). The PCDA process culminated in agreement on a set of 45 proposals which were adopted by the WIPO General Assembly in 2007 which further recommended the establishment of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP).

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