Today, IQsensato hosts the Second Geneva Seminar on Development Research (GSDR) with a focus on ” Copyright and Access to Educational and Learning Materials in Africa: Evidence from an Eight Country Study Project”. The seminar is co-organised with the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) Project which has also released a Briefing Paper for the seminar.

The seminar will hear a presentation of the preliminary findings of this research project, conducted by over 30 researchers in eight African countries from the lead researcher Dr. Dick Kawooya, and debate the implications of these findings for international, regional and national policy-making processes. In the international context, the focus will be on what these findings mean for the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) especially the work of its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) which meets next week. The findings also have implications for WIPO’s work on development, particularly the work of the Standing Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP). The eight study countries are: Egypt; Ghana; Kenya; Morocco; Mozambique; Senegal; South Africa; and Uganda.

This second seminar, in my view, exemplifies what GSDR is all about – providing an international platform for researchers, academics and practitioners, particularly from developing countries, to share and test the results of their research on the development dimension of issues that are the subject of discussions in key Geneva-based international organisations. It also attests to IQsensato’s purpose, which is to inform development policy-making by undertaking research, communicating results and stimulating debate by providing access to the work and perspectives of developing country researchers and experts.