Zambia is now serving a three-year term on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Executive Board, a key decision-making body that guides the WHO’s work on global health. Alongside thirty-three other countries on the Executive Board, Zambia will attend the 144th session of the Executive Board in January 2019 to discuss topics ranging from polio eradication to the health implications of climate change.  

But perhaps the most important topic on the Executive Board’s agenda is the WHO’s proposed Roadmap on Access to Medicines. This Roadmap sets priorities for the next five years of the WHO’s work on medicines around the world. As an Executive Board member, Zambia will help shape the discussion about how the WHO should approach this issue. 

Unfortunately, the WHO’s Roadmap, proposed by the WHO’s Secretariat, has serious problems that Member States need to fix. For example, the Roadmap envisions an expanded WHO role advising countries on intellectual property, such as the use of granting “compulsory licenses” (sometimes called “TRIPS flexibilities”) to allow the manufacture of patented medicines without the patent owners’ consent. This is unnecessary and would gravely harm global innovation – making it harder for patients to access today’s medicines and undermining investment in tomorrow’s new treatments and cures.

The WHO’s Roadmap reflects a tendency at the WHO to see patents as a barrier to access.  But this isn’t true: research has found no correlation between intellectual property and access to medicines.  Nearly all the drugs the WHO deems “essential” are already off-patent yet still out of reach for millions due to other factors, such as weak and underfunded health care systems.  Strengthening IP can actually facilitate access, both by stimulating new discoveries and making it easier for innovative medicines to reach patients that need them.  

The WHO is also ill-suited to make these recommendations: it lacks the expertise to advise countries on the complex technical, economic and trade implications of intellectual property (IP) protections. Many countries have already raised concerns that the WHO should not spend its limited resources working on such polarizing tasks that are unlikely to improve access to medicines. 

WHO Executive Board members need to step up—and speak out—about the vital role of IP in spurring new discoveries. In recent international convenings, Zambia has defended the importance of biomedical innovation. This doesn’t come as a surprise since the government has placed an emphasis on strengthening the country’s research and development (R&D) capacity and driving innovation across major sectors of the Zambian market.

Take Zambia’s National Development Plan, for example. The plan, which sets out a comprehensive strategy for Zambia to become a “prosperous middle-income country by 2030,” devotes an entire section to enhancing R&D, recognizing its “critical role in the innovation and development processes” and calling for “the Government, together with stakeholders, to invest in research and development.” Moreover, in its National Industrial Policy—published in March of 2018—Zambia stated its objective to “stimulate innovation and invention of new products through industrial research and development and protection of intellectual property.” 

While Zambia has taken policy steps that reflect the government’s push to promote R&D and innovation—including enacting legislation that strengthens the country’s patent system—it’s critical that Zambian delegates continue speaking out on the importance of IP rights and protections in international forums as well.

Zambia’s statements in recent international meetings are a step in the right direction and show that its leaders are aware of the vital importance of establishing an environment that can support and foster a strong innovation economy—not just for their country’s own development, but for improvements to global progress:

• At the May 2018 World Health Assembly, the Zambian delegation said that it stood with the African Member States in supporting “the priority of building capacity for the proper implementation of intellectual property laws” and welcomed “the emphasis on research” as a facilitator of access to medicines and vaccines.
• At that same meeting, in comments addressing the role of innovation in improving access to medicines, Zambian officials said that the country “recognizes the importance of intellectual property and its potential to innovation and public health,” and raised that Zambia has “embedded [IP] in its national health research act.”  

These statements show Zambia’s commitment to advancing innovation so patients around the world can access today’s treatments and tomorrow’s cures.

As WHO Executive Board considers how to improve access to medicines, Zambia has an opportunity to rebut the idea that weakening IP will improve patient access. Zambia has already begun to establish itself as a leading advocate for protecting and strengthening the IP systems that help ensure innovation and patient access to medicines. The country is in a prime position to help focus the WHO on tackling the real barriers to access, such as weak and under-funded health care systems, poor infrastructure and taxes/tariffs. In particular, Zambia should speak out clearly at the Executive Board meeting to convey concerns about the Roadmap and ensure it does not lead to expanded WHO activities that would undermine IP globally.

Now’s the time to act. Patients around the world depend on Zambia and the other Executive Board members to lead the charge on proactive and comprehensive solutions that address the real and complex obstacles to better global health.