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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE has assumed the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) Council of Ministers chair, with the country expected to ratify the Kampala Protocol of Voluntary Registration of Copyright and Related Rights next week.
Zimbabwe through Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi now chairs the ARIPO Council of Ministers and is deputised by Zambia and The Gambia who are the first and second vice-chairs respectively.
Zimbabwe is expected to sign The Kampala Protocol which was adopted in Kampala, Uganda, on August 28 this year has already been sighed by 12 of the 21 ARIPO Member States.
The protocol will help promote creators from the ARIPO Member States and Africa’s creative industry by ensuring that they benefit from their creative works.
Benefits will include providing an effective means of presumption as to authorship and or ownership and enhancing an effective and efficient network between the National offices in charge of Copyright and Related Rights and the ARIPO secretariat.
The protocol will also establish a regional database for copyright and related rights for the ARIPO Member States.
It will create a conducive environment to ensure respect for the copyrighted works and facilitate the promotion of creative industries in the ARIPO Member States and Africa.
The protocol also aims at ensuring that creators benefit from their creative works, facilitating commercialisation, stimulating more creativity, expanding markets, attracting foreign direct investment and facilitating the enforcement of rights.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mrs Virginia Mabiza said Zimbabwe is expected to sign the Kampala Protocol next week at the ARIPO headquarters in Harare.
The deadline for countries to ratify the protocol is February 28, 2022.
“Zimbabwe was supposed to sign the Kampala Protocol today (yesterday) together with The Gambia, Zambia and Namibia, but unfortunately our Justice Minister (Ziyambi) had to rush back to Harare due to other Government commitments.
He will therefore sign the protocol in Harare next week on a date yet to advised,” she said.
Chief Registrar of the Companies and Intellectual Property Zimbabwe (CIPZ), Mr Willie Mushayi said the ARIPO conference, which ended yesterday, adopted a number of resolutions and discussed the strategy plan among other issues related to the administration of intellectual property.
“This was historic gathering of ARIPO family, which was categorised two sessions that is the 45th Session of Administrative Council and the 18th Session of the Council of Ministers.
The conference went well and everything was fairly organised despite the disruptions of Covid-19,” he said.
“We did have discussions on the strategy plan of ARIPO itself and how they are going to plan their work in the next five years.
The resolutions were approved and we are now looking forward to their implementation.”
Mr Mushayi said they also had serious discussions on membership.
“We are happy to announce that we have been joined by Seychelles and Mauritius. We are on a trajectory and we also reviewed our structures with the aim of enhancing our way of doing things,” he said.
“There were agreements and consensus on how to support ARIPO in its efforts to focus more on continental issues including the Africa Continental Free Trade Area and our involvement as member States so that we become more and more relevant in the affairs of AU and intellectual property in general.”
Mr Mushayi said a resolution was made that the next Council of Ministers will take place in Botswana in 2023. The Council of Ministers meets once every two years.
The next ARIPO Administrative Council, which is a meeting of heads of intellectual property offices will be held in Mozambique in 2022.
“We are grateful to President Mnangagwa for officially opening the conference and giving us exemption to proceed with meeting even if there were other pronouncements on Covid-19 restrictions.
Zimbabwe prioritises intellectual property and we believe in the next 12 months there will be serious transformation in the way intellectual property is administered in this country,” said Mr Mushayi.
Officially opening the ARIPO conference on Thursday, President Mnangagwa implored African countries to capitalise on the dawn of the 4th industrial revolution to create an enabling intellectual environment that helps bridge the gap between the continent and the developed world.
Many African countries, including Zimbabwe, are embracing intellectual property (IP) as a powerful tool for economic growth.
Recently, the country launched the Zimbabwe National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy which provides direction on development of IP systems among other enablers. The strategy seeks to spur innovation and creativity in various sectors of the economy.
It also addresses education and funding, identifies priority areas for research, human resource development needs, and the expected products for research initiatives. — @mashnets
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