WHO, WIPO, WTO Host First Joint Briefing in Geneva

The World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) organized on 26 February the first in a series of Trilateral Cooperation briefings for health, trade, and intellectual property (IP) diplomats based in Geneva. Held as a closed meeting at WHO Headquarters, Members of the three organizations shared experiences on supporting sustainable innovation ecosystems through health, trade and IP.

The imperative to adopt an integrated approach to issues at the crossroads of health, IP and trade has been at the heart of the longstanding collaboration among the three Geneva-based organizations.

Governments and policymakers are faced with the challenging task of identifying the right mix of policy options to best advance domestic policy objectives to facilitate sustainable innovation. Participants discussed how to facilitate ongoing domestic and regional policy discussions through a more coherent and comprehensive approach.

Members with diverse levels of development and from different regions of the world shared valuable experiences about the implementation of laws and policies in support of sustainable innovation ecosystems and access to the outcomes. This was followed by a roundtable discussion and further complemented by information provided by the three organizations on trilateral and other relevant work.

The WHO-WIPO-WTO Technical Assistance virtual Platform was also briefly introduced at the meeting. It allows Members to easily request joint technical assistance from the three organizations to access the full range of expertise at the intersection of health, trade, and IP in a coordinated manner.

The Trilateral Briefing series is a set of closed meetings for Members.

The next briefing session for Geneva-based health, IP and trade attachés is tentatively scheduled to take place in September 2025, after the summer break.