Innovation Ecosystems Bring a Green Future to Africa

April 22, 2021

While global climate change continues to impact environments around the world, southern Africa is considered to be one of the most vulnerable regions. At the same time, indigenous peoples and local communities, including farmers and rural populations, depend on local agriculture for their livelihoods. Zambia, a landlocked country in south-central Africa, is developing its innovation ecosystems to increase the country’s climate adaptive capacity.

ZARI rice fields used in the development of Zambia’s climate-smart rice varieties (Photo: Peggy Womba)

Going forward, farmers, particularly in these more vulnerable regions, will need climate-ready and drought-tolerant food crops, such as rice, to sustain their livelihoods. The Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) and its partners are tapping into advanced genomic technology and customized intellectual property (IP) management to develop climate-ready rice, based on Zambia’s local varieties.

ZARI is the largest agricultural research entity in Zambia. It provides scientific leadership in the generation and transfer of technologies through partnerships involving agricultural stakeholders and beneficiaries. The Institute’s main objectives include developing adaptive crops, as well as soil and plant protection technologies not only to address issues related to climate change, such as climate adaptation and food security, but also to contribute to Zambia’s biodiversity conservation, economic development and overall scientific progress.

In 2018, ZARI scientist, Peggy Womba, joined the WIPO-PRV Advanced International Training Program on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources in Support of Innovation, an annual training program organized by WIPO’s Traditional Knowledge Division and the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV). Her goals for joining the training were: learning best practices for the protection and promotion of the genetic diversity of Zambia’s local rice varieties, developing a platform for genetic resources and data exchange, and strengthening ZARI’s international partnerships.

We depend on the organizations like WIPO and its capacity-building program on IP, genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, which has greatly contributed to the development of Zambia’s capacity for IP rights management of our genetic resources and data.
Peggy Womba, ZARI, Zambia

Left: A woman farmer, Right: Peggy Womba, a ZARI woman scientist. Peggy works together with Zambian farmers to develop climate-smart crops for sustaining local livelihoods (Photo: Peggy Womba)

As part of this WIPO-PRV Advanced International Training Program, participants are required to implement a “change project”. Peggy’s change project focuses on the assessment of the germplasm, or genetic diversity, of Zambia’s local rice varieties for drought-tolerance and other climate-resilient traits. To do this, ZARI would need to create and correlate the varieties’ genomic data with other data sets. This would require a strategic IP rights management approach for the resulting data sets.

To develop such an approach, Peggy made use of the Traditional Knowledge Division’s ongoing services for IP rights management in genetic resources and data, which include specialized training, mentoring, matchmaking and operational rights management support for genetic resources and data. As part of these services, Peggy took WIPO’s Distance Learning Executive Course on IP and Genetic Resources in the Life Sciences, offered by the WIPO Academy and the Traditional Knowledge Division. The course provided customized project mentoring for issues related to IP rights management when creating and correlating Zambia's local rice varieties’ genomic data with data sets on the desired phenotypic traits of fully grown rice such as climate-resilience.

An example of an integrated genome browser (Photo: Aloraine, Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to training and mentoring, Peggy also joined a study group on IP and genetic resources and data. The group was formed by experts of five countries -- Indonesia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia -- who had participated in the same WIPO-PRV Advanced International Training Program. Seeing that their change project goals aligned, the group set out to study various ecosystem approaches to innovation and IP rights management for the exchange of genetic resources and data.

Since its formation, the experts have done extensive work to establish an IP rights management approach based on common principles. This includes regular coordination sessions, multiple study visits, expert presentations, group meetings and workshops informed by practical, country-driven needs for building capacity in the area of IP rights management of genetic resources and data. With reference to the resources available on WIPO’s Biodiversity-related Access and Benefit-sharing Agreements database, the experts were able to draft a toolkit.

We are confident that these international partnerships and our role in the development of our own innovation ecosystems will allow us to develop climate-smart solutions for our agriculture through our shared genetic resources and data built on our proactive use of common IP rights management principles.
Peggy Womba, ZARI, Zambia

In 2019 and 2020, the study group used the WIPO Match platform to connect the IP needs of their project with providers of innovation and technology. A free online tool, for which WIPO acts as a facilitator, WIPO Match brings WIPO’s vast resources and existing partnerships to those with specific IP-related development needs. With the help of WIPO Match, the study group was able to establish additional partnerships with public and private stakeholders in Africa and Asia.

A ZARI rice field used for the characterization of the varieties of Zambian rice. (Photo: Peggy Womba)

Through WIPO Match and the Traditional Knowledge Division’s genetic resources training and mentoring services, ZARI began a collaboration with the Indonesian Center for Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resource Research and Development (ICABIOGRAD) under the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development. The purpose of this partnership is to implement Peggy’s initial change project -- assessing the germplasm of Zambia’s local rice varieties in search of drought-tolerance and other climate-resilient traits.

It is critical for Zambia to establish international partnerships and develop its innovation ecosystems, because alone we do not have sufficient scientific capacity to fully leverage the opportunities which arise from new technologies such as genome sequencing and editing.
Peggy Womba, ZARI, Zambia

ZARI and ICABIOGRAD are now seeking to scale up their mutual agreement of collaboration by formalizing a full partnership with other members of the study group to continue the development of their innovation ecosystems for the exchange of genetic resources and data, based on a shared IP rights management approach.

Through her participation in the WIPO-PRV Advanced International Training Program, Peggy, and thus ZARI, was also able to establish a collaborative IP rights management system for the exchange of proprietary data in order to provide high-quality and appropriate services to Zambia’s farmers and rural populations. These innovation ecosystems and the pathways created by international IP-related research partnerships will allow ZARI and its partners to leverage the exchange of genetic resources and data as they work to overcome their shared global challenges.

Looking for more information on WIPO’s work on genetic resources and data?

Visit the WIPO Traditional Knowledge website for more on WIPO’s work on intellectual property and genetic resources and data.

For regular updates on WIPO’s activities, sign up for WIPO Traditional Knowledge Updates.