Africa Moyo
Deputy National Editor
AFRICA faces a major intellectual property dilemma in which traditional knowledge systems developed and preserved over generations can be exploited commercially, while the communities that own the knowledge struggle to secure legal recognition and benefit from it, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Senegal James Maridadi has said.
Ambassador Maridadi said existing international intellectual property (IP) laws were inadequate in protecting African intellectual property, particularly traditional indigenous knowledge, leaving the continent vulnerable to exploitation and bio-piracy.
He made the remarks recently while delivering a lecture titled “Intellectual Property Rights and the African Dilemma” at the Academy of National Sciences and Techniques of Senegal’s bimonthly lecture series.
He said much of Africa’s traditional knowledge was treated as folklore under existing international IP frameworks and therefore fell into the public domain, making it difficult for communities that had developed and preserved the knowledge over generations to claim ownership or derive commercial benefits from it.
Ambassador Maridadi said the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), while setting comprehensive minimum standards for the protection and enforcement of IP rights, had shortcomings when it came to protecting African traditional knowledge.
“The global minimum set standards for conventional IP emphasise commercial novelty, inventiveness (inventive step) and industrial application for patent protection and ‘formal fixation’ in the case of copyright as criteria for protection,” he said.
“These standards tend to exclude TK (traditional knowledge) yet allow those who modify genetic resources like native seeds to enjoy patent protection of those modifications as new inventions and wealthy international corporations are the usual beneficiaries.”
Ambassador Maridadi said traditional knowledge was passed from generation to generation and was often undocumented, while ownership could not easily be attributed to one individual.
He cited the Hoodia gordonii plant, traditionally used by San communities of the Kalahari to suppress hunger during long hunting expeditions, as an example of the challenges facing African traditional knowledge.
The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) patented technology based on the plant and licensed it to pharmaceutical companies, while the San were initially not consulted or given a share of the commercial benefits.
Following lobbying, the San were eventually awarded 8 percent of payments and 6 percent of royalties received by CSIR from sales of the final product.
Ambassador Maridadi said the case demonstrated how existing international patent rules could potentially facilitate bio-piracy.
He called for the adoption of a “sui generis” (of its own kind) legal regime specifically designed to protect traditional indigenous knowledge and encouraged African governments and other stakeholders to start serious conversations on strengthening its protection.
Traditional knowledge should not be viewed as anti-science or an impediment to development, but as complementary to scientific research, he added.
Ambassador Maridadi said communities could have spent generations establishing the medicinal properties of plants, providing valuable information for the development of medicines, herbicides and insecticides.
He welcomed the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, adopted in Geneva in May 2024, saying it represented an important development in addressing the protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
However, he said the treaty would only come into force after 15 eligible parties had ratified or acceded to it.
Ambassador Maridadi said stronger international protection was necessary to ensure African communities were recognised and benefited from intellectual property and traditional knowledge developed and preserved on the continent over generations.
