Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Innovation & Intellectual Property
promote, facilitate and enable the identification of SME-appropriate, environmentally
and economically sustainable technologies for the production of biofuels in
Mozambique.
Also to be encouraged is informal technology transfer of the kind we found
being practised by the ADPP NGO project, i.e. transfer of technology from
Tanzanian small-scale farmer groupings to a Mozambican small-scale grouping.
This is an example of African innovators transferring knowledge, on an open
access basis, for the common good. Broad availability of locally developed technologies
has the potential to boost and spread innovation in Africa. This successful
free and open transfer of localised knowledge from rural communities in
Tanzania to rural communities in Mozambique hints at the fact that focusing on
development and sharing of local technologies could be a key path towards innovative,
localised biofuels production in Mozambique (and elsewhere in Africa)
that is sustainable in economic, environmental and social terms and, in turn,
drives equitable socio-economic development.
It is urgent that the two key pillars of the NPSB of 2009 – the National Agenda
for Research and Innovation in Biofuels and the National Programme on Biofuels
Development – be implemented. To achieve the purpose for which they were created,
it is fundamental that the two initiatives:
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prioritise processing of biofuels by small industrial units or local
communities;
promote identification and use of simple technology used in rural areas in
other African countries, Brazil and India;
encourage transfer of technologies, especially for use by SMEs, through
appropriate incentives;
encourage use of patent information and technological information
services provided by TISC focal points to identify appropriate biofuels
technology;
promote synergies between research institutions, innovators, local industry
and producers in order to identify non-protected technologies and provide
for adaptation of such technologies to fit local needs;
liaise with the National Programme for the Promotion of the Mozambican
Innovator, developed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, in order
to direct local innovation initiatives towards biofuels technologies; and
promote the use of utility models, as recognised in the IP Code of 2006, by
local innovators.
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