ConferenceThinking about Industrial Property, Sustainability and the Future of the Planet

WIPO Director General Daren Tang’s Opening Remarks

Lisbon, May 29, 2023

 

Excellencies Secretary of State Andre Moz Caldas,

Minister Sarmento e Castro,

Minister Elvira Fortunato,

 

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed,

President Campinos,

Fellow Directors General, Colleagues, Friends

Bom dia.

It is a great pleasure to be back in the historic city of Lisbon and at this important conference.

I am deeply grateful to the Portuguese government for their support of this initiative ahead of the UN SDG Summit in September.

Twelve months ago, Lisbon played host to a meeting of the Lusophone Commonwealth with WIPO to open a new chapter of our relationship.

On that occasion, I shared WIPO’s new vision, that IP could and should be a powerful catalyst for growth and development in a community spanning four continents and over 300 million people.

I return to Lisbon today to reinforce and amplify this message not just for the Lusophone community, but for the whole world. Solving the greatest global challenges of our time requires that we harness the energy of innovation and the power of creativity in the service of humankind. I am honored that Prime Minister Costa, joined by many senior political and government leaders, is using this conference to underscore Portugal’s commitment to shaping the global IP ecosystem so that it can be in the service of the SDGs.

Already, IP protects those taking risks in areas such as clean-tech and green-tech to create new ideas. It provides a vehicle for lifesaving medicines and breakthrough technologies to get to market. It helps research across the life sciences to create impact. And it is a means for distributing groundbreaking discoveries to places where they are needed the most.

Because of the pandemic and other crises, progress on the SDGs has either stalled or gone into reverse in over 30 percent of the goals, with an extra 75 million people living in extreme poverty today than before the pandemic.

To step up effectively, we must do so as an international community.

And of course, to quote again, the Deputy Secretary-General, the great challenges that we face: ending poverty and hunger, tackling climate change and addressing humanitarian and health emergencies – are common to us all.

However, when it comes to IP and the SDGs we sometimes encounter the perception that IP is an obstacle to our common goal of delivering a fairer, better and more sustainable world.

Our belief is that IP is part of the solution to our common global challenges, and that it can be a powerful catalyst for growth and development, as well as an important tool for translating great ideas into impact that will help us meet the SDGs and leave no-one behind.

This link is enshrined within SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. But IP’s role in delivering Agenda 2030 goes beyond this vertical and is in fact a horizontal that cuts across all SDGs, fueling the innovative solutions that can be deployed in addressing all 17 SDGs.

But to show this, the global IP community needs to work hard to deliver results and action. That’s why we have fully integrated the SDG’s across the breadth of our work at WIPO, so that they serve as a frame for building a more inclusive IP ecosystem – one much closer and connected to people, businesses and communities in all parts of the world.

Let me share four concrete examples. 

First, on SDG 13: Climate Action. 

Despite the volume of green technologies in development, their adoption and diffusion can struggle to keep pace with the scale and urgency of the climate threat. WIPO GREEN, our online and global platform for climate-tech exchange, bridges this gap by connecting providers and seekers of green technologies around the world.

Not only does this lead to tangible partnerships on the ground, it ensures that technology adoption matches local needs.

WIPO GREEN has grown strongly in recent years to cover more than 130,000 technologies from over 140 countries, and we believe it is the biggest and most sophisticated green tech platform that the UN family offers today.

Now, our objective is to increase the number of successful matches. One way of doing this is to continue to raise awareness of the platform. At COP 27, we launched the Green Technology Book, which showcases some of the technologies available in the critical field of climate adaptation. It has been accessed over half a million times in just six months, with most views coming from developing countries.

We will also continue to invest in WIPO GREEN’s Acceleration Projects. These are helping to advance climate-smart agriculture in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru; to boost energy efficiency in China; and to support the greening of palm oil production in Indonesia. We are open to further partnerships nationally, regionally and with the private sector. 

Second, on SDG 5: Gender Equality.

The Deputy Secretary General has mentioned this quite a bit, and to reinforce her point -  Portugal has the highest number of women in science and tech in the European region. So, congratulations to the Portuguese government and people on this achievement.

To address global challenges, all sectors of society must be supported to realize their innovative and creative potential. But right now, the gap is big. Despite progress in recent years, women file only 16 percent of international patent applications. 

Urgent change is needed. To help deliver it, we are taking forward IPGAP – WIPO’s Gender Action Plan. Lisa Jorgensen, WIPO’s Deputy Director General in charge of the Patents and Technology Sector and our first IP and Gender champion, will have more to say about this in today’s discussions. But let me focus on one aspect: how we are supporting women’s economic empowerment at the grassroots level. 

Over the past year, WIPO has launched bespoke projects for women entrepreneurs in Jordan, Egypt, Namibia and Uganda, as well as in groups of Latin American and Central European and Baltic states. These are not one-off seminars or events but months-long mentorship programs that are designed to understand the journey of these women, their challenges, and help them incorporate IP as part of their journey.

We are helping women with no prior IP background in China, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam to manage their IP. We are pioneering an initiative for Women in STEM careers in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru. Our training, mentoring and matching program for women entrepreneurs from indigenous communities has supported close to 100 people from over 50 countries. And last month’s World IP Day, which was centered on the theme of “IP and Women,” was not only a celebration of women inventors and creators, but a chance to build momentum behind further and faster change for the benefit of current and future generations.

Third, SDG 4: Quality Education. 

The WIPO Academy is the world’s largest provider of IP training and skills, offering over 300 courses that reached more than 270,000 people over the past two years – nearly 200,000 of whom are from Asia, Latin America and Africa. These training courses are helping to level up the skillsets of many of those from developing countries and LDCs who are innovating at the grassroots level.

To maximize impact, we have broadened the work of the WIPO Academy, introducing courses such as IP for exports and IP for startups, IP for mobile app developers, which go beyond transfers of technical IP knowledge to the building of practical IP skills.

This has helped us to provide IP training to over 50,000 small and medium enterprises over the past two years, and increase the number of people from developing countries graduating from our Master’s degree programs. 

I also want to highlight the vital work of the Marrakesh Treaty and WIPO’s Accessible Books Consortium. The Marrakesh Treaty supports millions of people who are blind or visually impaired around the world by widening access to specially adapted books. ABC’s Global Book Service delivered nearly 150,000 titles to people who are print-disabled last year – creating new opportunities for inclusive learning and career development in all regions of the world.

And fourth, SDG 17: Partnerships.  

One of the most powerful lessons of the pandemic was that the global response was strongest when parties pulled together: when scientists collaborated across borders; when countries helped one another to get jabs into arms; when international organizations pooled their expertise.

One of the early steps we took was to strengthen our trilateral cooperation with the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization. We knew that by working across all three agencies, and by drawing on our respective know-how in innovation, health and trade, we could enhance the assistance available to Member States, and add to the support offered by our own COVID-19 response package.

WIPO has also just completed our first full year as a member of the UN Sustainable Development Group. We are confident that this will open the door to new and exciting collaborations with other UN agencies and partners around the world. And we have published a new report identifying examples of good practice among IP offices in support of the SDGs.

Now, we are eager for this momentum to flow across the full spectrum of our work.

Whether we are addressing questions around IP and AI, or finding new ways to ensure that IP works for all, supporting the 2030 Agenda will continue to be front and center of everything that we do.

In conclusion, with the SDGs hanging in the balance, this is a time for leadership, a time for action, and a time for the IP community to step up its contribution to the goals.

To lead that charge, I am pleased to announce that IP and the SDGs will be theme of World IP Day in 2024, which we celebrate on 26^th April each year.

As WIPO's flagship campaign to galvanize action across all our 193 Member States, the theme of IP and SDGs will hopefully focus all of our attention on this important topic.

Lastly, as the global IP community and the UN family, it is critical that we bring together all of our efforts to bring the SDGs back on track and harness the power of innovation and creativity from around the world so that together we can use IP to help build a better, fairer and more sustainable world. WIPO stands ready to be your partner on this journey and wishes the participants a fruitful, impactful and exciting discussion.

Thank you very much. Muito obrigado.