Member States Support Draft Program andBudget for 2002-2003
Geneva, September 21, 2001
Press Updates UPD/2001/143
The member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) expressed support on Thursday for the draft program and budget for the 2002-2003 biennium presented by WIPO Director General, Dr. Kamil Idris, amounting to just under 680 million Swiss Francs (ChF). The program and budget will be formally submitted to the WIPO Assemblies for adoption at their annual meetings which open on September 24, 2001.
At a meeting of the Program and Budget Committee from September 17 to 20, 2001, delegates welcomed the transparent and results-based approach adopted by the Organization in this exercise. The draft program and budget for the 2002-2003 biennium responds to increasing demands by the market for WIPO's services and takes into account a broad range of technical assistance activities in favor of developing countries. "It is expected that a strong market and consumer orientation will characterize intellectual property protection development in the 2002-2003 biennium, similar to that emerging in other fields such as social development, environmental management, health, labor and international finance," the document stated in its Introduction. One strategy, it added, "is continued provision of global services of the highest possible quality, geared to achieving maximum customer satisfaction, in anticipation of the predominance of private business issues in the domain of intellectual property."
The draft proposes a budget of 678.4 million Swiss Francs (ChF). This represents an increase of 19.9 % over the revised budget for 2000-2001 of 565.9 million ChF. The portion of the budget funded by contributions from member states entails no change in the contribution of each member state. Contributions by member states amount to less than 10% of the overall budget. WIPO is largely a self-funding agency, financing its activities from revenues acquired through the provision of services to the private sector in the form of international registration/filing of patents, trademarks, and designs.
The increase in the proposed budget expenditure is due to the dramatic rise in demand for WIPO's services to the private sector. As WIPO is a demand-driven Organization, it must continuously upgrade its services to meet market requirements. For instance, it is estimated that over the next biennium (2002-2003), the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which facilitates the international filing of patents, will grow by 20% and on-line dispute resolution filings by 50%. Fee decreases in use of the PCT of some 17% are also proposed for the next biennium as part of continuing efforts to make the PCT more accessible to users, including those from developing countries and the small and medium-sized enterprises sector. As a result, PCT fees would have been reduced by a total of 45 percent since 1997.
Also, increases are due to growth in strategic areas of the Organization's programs and services and the related policy issues that need to be addressed in the 2002-2003 biennium. The imperatives of information technology and unprecedented growth of global protection services and intellectual property dispute resolution services, these include progressive and dynamic development of intellectual property laws, heightened cooperation for development and human resources development, newly emerging global intellectual property issues and cost-effective operations and administration within the secretariat. The draft program and budget emphasizes that transparency in program and planning will be enhanced by a process of continuous monitoring and evaluation.
Delegates at the Committee also discussed a document outlining various options for an extension of WIPO's headquarters ranging from 180.0 to 82.5 million ChF. The new building would consolidate all WIPO staff in one complex - currently, WIPO rents office space in 7 separate buildings in the Geneva area. Following an international architectural competition, a building design was selected in March 2000. The Program and Budget Committee requested WIPO to proceed with administrative and planning arrangement for the construction project and to update an evaluation on business needs and building capacity, including additional technical facilities. The Federal Audit Office of the Swiss Confederation will serve as the external assessor. In accordance with the proposal of WIPO, a final decision on the budget for the construction project is expected in April 2002.
The Committee was chaired by Mr. Arturo Hernández Basave (Mexico). The program and budget document is available on the Internet at https://www.wipo.int.
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