Tuesday, May 22, 2007

World Bank study reveals mixed progress on poverty reduction

The World Bank's Private Sector Development Blog has a short commentary about a recent study by the Bank. The study shows that the percentage of people living in poverty decreased over the past 25 years; however, the total number of people living in poverty did not decrease signifigantly, except in the People's Republic of China. The authors also suggest that much of China's poverty reduction is due to agrarian reforms by the Chinese Communist Party since 1970.

From the study's abstract:



We report new estimates of measures of absolute poverty for the developing world over 1981-2004. A clear trend decline in the percentage of people who are absolutely poor is evident, although with uneven progress across regions. We find more mixed success in reducing the total number of poor. Indeed, the developing world outside China has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor, with rising poverty counts in some regions, notably Sub-Saharan Africa. There are encouraging signs of progress in reducing the incidence of poverty in all regions after 2000, although it is too early to say if this is a new trend.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

PIPRA and MIHR introduce IP Handbook

"It will be the reference for the next generation" says Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation at BIO 2007 in Boston on May 6 at the official launch of the 2000 page Intellectual Property Handbook. This collection of 153 chapters on the art and science of intellectual property management teaches us "to think of using IP in the public interest."

Lita Nelsen, head of technology transfer for MIT and one of the editors of the two volume reference book, describes it as "the How-To manual for using the tool of IP." It is geared, she says, toward two distinct audiences. One is "research institutions and technology transfer operations in developing countries that are building the capabilities of understanding and of actually practicing technology transfer." The other is "
first world institutions, to make sure that they consider the needs of developing countries when they license important IP in medicines, vaccines, and foods, and do it right."

Suresh Jadhav, president of the Developing Country Vaccine Manufacturers Network says "I am quite sure that this book, when it goes to developing country manufacturers, or to the research organizations and the universities in developing countries, will certainly teach them the thought process about how to handle their own technologies and how to handle the technologies which are available from developed countries."

The IP Handbook fulfills the spirit of the old Chinese proverb "
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."


Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Pipra starts blogging

Welcome to the Pipra blog. We're in the process of gutting and revamping our electronic infrastructure, such as our IP database, and rethinking our communications strategy, including our website and, yes, this blog. We hope this will be a good way for Pipra members and other interested readers to stay abreast of what we're doing at Pipra. So, please, bookmark this page, or subscribe to our RSS feed.