The Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) formalized their cooperation on capacity building by signing an Administrative Arrangement (hereinafter the “AA”) in Geneva on 15 December 2017.
The major cooperation activities to be performed under the AA would contribute to support ARIPO’s capacity building and technical cooperation on issues relevant in in the area of plant varieties protection. Another area of cooperation identified under the AA is the organization of joint awareness and sensibilization programmes on the development of a legal and administrative PVR system and its enforcement.
The signature of the said AA follows the adoption by the Forty-First Session of the Administrative Council of ARIPO on 20 November 2017, held in Lilongwe, the Republic of Malawi, of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Arusha Protocol for the protection of New Varieties of Plants.
The agreement will have an initial duration of five years as from the date of signature. The CPVO and the ARIPO may decide to review the cooperation activities deployed under this AA and to evaluate their implementation. The evaluation may include identifying areas in which cooperation should be strengthened, improved, suspended or terminated and new areas for joint action.