GEVES shares its DUS expertise in Togo, Ghana and Senegal
GEVES has been particularly active in Africa in recent months, represented by Georges SICARD as a DUS expert.
TOGO
Togo’s Ministry of Agriculture has decided to develop and structure its soya sector with the help of French expertise.
To this end, GEVES has been commissioned by SEMAE to upgrade the procedures for registering varieties in the national catalogue and to prepare Togo’s accession to the OECD seed schemes with regard to the national list of varieties eligible for OECD certification.
The joint mission to Togo by Georges and Christian Lascromps, SEMAE’s seed certification procedures expert, took place from 30 July to 5 August, and gave them a clear understanding of the seed sector, from the selection of new varieties to the marketing of certified batches. The week’s intense programme took them as far north as Kara, where they met the main stakeholders and visited trial plots and seed production sites during a period of rapid growth.
The mission’s joint report was presented during a videoconference with the Togolese authorities, who have begun to reflect on the ideas put forward.
GHANA
Following its accession to UPOV and the adoption of regulations on the intellectual protection of plant varieties, Ghana requested support for their operational implementation. It was against this backdrop that GEVES was commissioned by SEMAE to assess the country’s capacity to conduct DUS trials in accordance with UPOV’s international standards.
The mission to Ghana took place from 24 to 30 September and included visits to a number of research centres, including the universities of Cape Coast and Kumasi.
The report was sent by SEMAE to the Ghana Intellectual Property Office, including its impressions and suggestions for revising the DUS, as well as its views on intellectual property protection.
The Director of the Intellectual Property Office, Grace Issahaque, was then able to meet our colleagues from GEVES, Carole Dirwimmer, Clarisse Leclair and Yvane Meresse at the UPOV annual meeting in Geneva at the end of October.
SENEGAL
As part of the technical support provided to the DUS examination centres recently approved by the OAPI (African Intellectual Property Office), Georges SICARD was recruited as a GEVES consultant to assess the existing reference collections of plant varieties at the Institut Sénégalais de Recherche Agricole, to draw up a manual of procedures for the creation of reference collections, and to make recommendations for future action with a view to building the capacity of the staff in charge of managing these collections.
The mission from 8 to 14 October went very well, thanks in particular to the involvement of the new OAPI correspondent in Senegal, Ms Codou GUEYE. This mission is also being extended to other countries by other experts, who met by videoconference with the OAPI, AfriPI and the CPVO. Prospects for continuing the project were discussed, with the involvement of GEVES.
