Press Release

Dr. Rathin Roy addresses Prime Minister Singh, President Lula and President Zuma Recommendations from the Academic Forum of the 4 th India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Process are presented to the Heads of State and Government of the three countries today in Brasilia.

Brasilia, 15 April 2010 – The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) organised the India-Brazil-South Africa Academic Forum: A Policy Dialogue as a means of bringing together specialists, policy makers, researchers and the civil society from the three countries to discuss key issues for the promotion of inclusive growth. The results and recommendations of the Forum are now being presented at the IBSA Summit in Brasilia, representing a unique opportunity for promoting the inclusive growth agenda at the highest decision making arenas.

Follow below the recommendations addressed by Dr. Rathin Roy, Director of IPC-IG:

The Forum agreed to the following substantive policy recommendations in the thematic areas on which discussions took place, which I am asked to place before the plenary:

Health Innovation, Intellectual property rights and Access to Essential drugs

Co-operation between the patent offices in the IBSA countries, particularly to stop the awarding of frivolous patents and to prioritize access to essential medicines;
Consultation between IBSA countries on bilateral processes including free-trade agreements, which may have adverse impacts on access to essential drugs in the other IBSA countries;
Sharing information on cost effectiveness analyses undertaken by the three countries; and
Collaboration in R&D especially on priority and neglected diseases.

Social Development Strategies for Inclusive Growth

Building on the success of programmes like Bolsa Familia, CSG and NREGA, the countries should collaborate on designing a portfolio of policies to create and sustain a comprehensive social protection framework; and
Support evidence-based research leading to improved policies to address unemployment, particularly youth unemployment.

IBSA as an effective plurilateral arrangement

Rapid enhancement of development cooperation through the increase of resources available through the IBSA Fund;
Projects funded by the IBSA Fund should be better documented and widely disseminated; and
Expand support to priority areas of research with benefits beyond IBSA, to the Global South, facilitated by a Research Fund established by the IBSA countries as a trusteeship.

The IBSA Academic Forum was held on April 12-13 th, in Brasilia. There were one hundred participants from the three countries. Twenty eight speakers presented research findings.

Other than academics and researchers, there was also participation from the relevant Ministries of the three IBSA countries. This facilitated a shared understanding on the areas where there is demand for policy relevant research across the IBSA process.

The main message of the Forum is that there is capacity, willingness and ability to deliver collaborative research on a number of themes.

It was agreed that collaborative research should deliver evidence-based substantive inputs, that could feed into the overall dialogue process, including the policy deliberations between the leaders of the IBSA countries.

The presence of the Heads of research institutions and think-tanks also facilitated agreement on the institutional arrangements for collaboration.

The forum was able to agree a concrete work programme around the following themes:

Social Development Strategies for Inclusive Growth
Health innovations, intellectual property rights and Access to essential drugs
The role and Potential of IBSA as a Plurilateral arrangement

The forum also identified: