ENB:05:14
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ADOPTION OF THE REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP:
The mandate given to the Working Group by the CSD called for it to "report" its findings and suggestions to the next session of the CSD. Despite this there was confusion among the participants as they tried to resist the temptations of negotiating a final text. The Secretariat produced a report based on the discussion of the Group and the Chair asked that participants note elements that were missing or where emphasis may be wrong, and that they focus on the concrete recommendations of the Working Group to the CSD. The room filled with diplomats accompanying their experts, and the Group moved paragraph-by-paragraph through the document making oral amendments.The Secretariat's text tried to balance the points made by participants and incorporated the work of the two small informal groups that had met on the proposal for a study of existing information resources and on the need for national needs assessments. A number of governments within the G-77 led by Brazil remarked that the overall report while reflecting the specific proposals made did not yet convey the spirit of the discussions. Specifically, the document should not prejudge the inability of the world community to meet its goals and targets on financial issues. Similarly a number of developing countries, supported by Italy and some other developed countries, felt that the draft presented by the Secretariat focused too much on prescriptions for the developing world and not enough on international action that could improve situations and trends. Others complained that the document stressed too much technology for the environment and excluded technology for development.
Many preferred the Secretary-General's report that was provided to the Working Group, which listed a series of concrete suggestions. There was also concern from developing country delegations, including Cuba, Uganda, Benin and Brazil, that while the Finance Working Group would follow the technology Group, concrete recommendations could be made by the technology Group for consideration by the finance Group. Colombia asked that the document clearly delineate between the responsibilities of developing and developed countries.
The discussion of the report stalled a number of times over problems of definition of intellectual property rights. There was general agreement that developing countries need to be able to develop their own patenting capacity. Participants once again became confused over differences between technologies that are privately protected, publicly owned and technologies in the public domain. Finally, it was agreed that it would be most useful to refer to technologies that are protected by patent and those that are not, noting that those that are protected can be either publicly or privately owned. The Philippines stressed that attention should be paid to the enhanced use of and protection of indigenous technologies, and that the report should stress that it is concerned only with helpful or environmentally benign technologies.
There was eventual agreement that without prejudging the recommendations of the CSD itself the report should recommend that the work continue and that arrangements for that work be flexible and not exclude informal meetings such as those in Oslo and Cartagena or the intergovernmental nature of this working group.
@HEAD2.5 = WORKING GROUP ON FINANCE
The Working Group on Finance met from 28 February - 2 March 1994. The purpose of this meeting was to provide a forum where financial experts could develop a set of policy recommendations to assist the CSD in its deliberations on this issue at its next meeting in May. The experts were not expected to produce a negotiated text nor to reach consensus in their discussions. Rather, the report of the Working Group became a menu of recommendations and proposed concrete actions that will be forwarded to the CSD for further consideration.