[Ip-health] FromGeneva: Canada, United States, South Africa and Kenya raise issue of fast-tracking NGO accreditation

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://fromgeneva.blogspot.com/2006/12/canada-united-states-south-
africa-and.html

Canada, United States, South Africa and Kenya raise issue of
fast-tracking NGO accreditation

FromGeneva
8 December 2006
Thiru Balasubramaniam


On the final day of the first WHO Intergovernmental Working Group on
Public Health, Innovation, and Intellectual Property (IGWG/PHI),
Canada, United States and Kenya made helpful interventions on the
fast-tracking of NGOs to the WHO IGWG process (on an ad hoc basis).
Specifically, the United States delegate referred to the fast-track
accreditation process undertaken at the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control. The WHO Legal Counsel noted that the WHO Executive Board
(January 2007) would be the competent authority to make this decision.
Kenya asked the WHO Secretariat on how to facilitate the quicket
accreditation of civil society to the IGWG process. The Secretariat
noted that a WHO Member State would need to raise NGO accreditation at
the Executive Board in January 2007 but further clarified that this
topic would be on the report of this meeting. The United States then
queried whether NGO accreditation would be automatically included on
the Executive Board and the WHO Secretariat confirmed this point.

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
CPTech
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@cptech.org