The Strategy is informed by the following vision: 'The Mozambican government regards intellectual property as an instrument for stimulating and protecting creativity and innovation to promote the country’s economic, scientific, technological and cultural development'. Its overall goal is 'to create the basic preconditions for promoting creativity, the results of scientific and technological research and local innovative capacity, thereby furthering the use of the intellectual property system for the benefit of the scientific, technological, economic, cultural and social development of the country'. Well said, says this Leo.
Much thought has gone into formulating the Strategy as it draws from a multiplicity of other relevant documents, policies and programs, namely:
'the main national, regional and international instruments guiding Mozambique’s development, such as Agenda 2025, the Expanded Program for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA), the Government’s Five-Year Plan, the Millennium Development Goals, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the various policies and strategies of the relevant sectors in the sphere of intellectual property, in particular the Policy on Science and Technology, the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, the Industrial Policy and Strategy, the Rural Development Strategy, the Policy on Traditional Medicine, the Cultural Policy, and the Strategic Plan on Education and Culture'.
The contents of the Strategy are as follows:
- Overview of Intellectual Property in Mozambique
- Importance of Intellectual Property
- Vision and Goals (see above)
- Strategic Framework and Strategic Areas: These are well articulated and are quite detailed. They centre around the following seven areas:
- Dissemination of IP;
- Education and IP;
- Scientific and technological research;
- Innovation and competitiveness in industry;
- Traditional knowledge and biodiversity;
- Creativity and development of the cultural industry; and
- Administration of the intellectual property system.
The Strategy also consists of ANNEX II: Intellectual Property Action Plan which outlines 25 strategic goals to which short and medium term actions are assigned, as is a mid-term (2012) achievement target. Any planning pundit will agree that this is how one sets SMART goals. They are Specific, Measurable, Assignable or Achievable (depending on who you read), Realistic and Time-related.
This is an impressive effort from Mozambique which seems to be doing well as far as its IP environment is concerned. As Kingsley noted here, it also has a vibrant IP Office website and is providing regional IP leadership in the person of the former Director-General of Mozambique's Industrial Property Institute (IPI) Mr Fernando Dos Santos who is the current Director-General of ARIPO.
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Recent Afro-IP posts on Mozambique
The Global Innovation Index: Ranking African countries since 2007..
Mozambique signs up for Berne at last!
