The 54-member African Union has declared its support for Geoffrey Onyeama as a candidate for director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
The African Union (AU) is an intergovernmental body based in Addis Ababa, which comprises all African countries except Morocco. The AU Summit ended on 31 January. The decision document is here [pdf].
Onyeama, who is the WIPO deputy director general responsible for the Development Sector, is from Nigeria. He has worked at WIPO since 1985.
Onyeama is one of four candidates for the DG post (IPW, WIPO, 6 December 2014).
The 83-member WIPO Coordination Committee will choose from among the DG candidates on 6-7 March. There are nearly 20 countries on the committee from Africa. The vote is by secret ballot.
The candidates will meet with the member states tomorrow at WIPO headquarters.
[…] proponents of a new, fair, and effective GRTKF regime are the members of the African Union who have declared their formal support for the candidacy of Deputy Director General Geoffry Onyeama. Onyeama is also responsible for WIPO’s development sector, which is commissioned with advancing […]
[…] After nearly 30 years at WIPO, Onyeama ran unsuccessfully for WIPO director general in 2014. He had the backing of the 54-member African Union (IPW, WIPO, 3 February 2014). […]