Health related Innovation, Incentivization and IPR for Post- Covid World – A vision for the South
Krishna Ravi Srinivas, PhD Consultant, RIS The concept paper for the Webinar ‘South-South Co-operation on IPRS for Access to Health in the times of Pandemics’ held on 20 th November 2020 outlines the various issues, challenges, and policy options available to the South in the context of intellectual property and innovation in a post-COVID-19 world. The paper obviously gives importance to South-South co-operation. But it goes beyond that stating “Can the South put its collective strength together and develop licenses and mechanism that are more suited to South?” and follows that with 12 guiding ques tions which need serious reflection. In this blog post based on my talk given in the webinar I discuss one aspect and suggest that South should think in terms of collective self-reliance and work for it. The literature points out how countries have used various options available to them, including the flexibilities in TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement. But t