The world celebrates World Intellectual Property Day every year on 26 April as a result of a decision by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a Geneva-based international organisation that has a mandate to deal with intellectual property (IP)-related matters and administers 26 international treaties in various fields. Each year, the WIPO agrees on a specific theme for the International Day. Many countries celebrate it as well through different types of national activities, whether independently or in cooperation with the WIPO. Some regional and sub-regional organisations, among them the Arab League, celebrate the occasion through holding conferences, symposia, seminars or workshops on the theme of that year either independently or in cooperation with the WIPO. This year's theme is encouraging women's creativity and innovation. The Department of Intellectual Property and Competitiveness at the Arab League recently held a regional seminar on this theme, with the participation of the WIPO, representatives from several Arab governments, IP representatives, IP law-enforcement agencies and other relevant stakeholders in the Arab region, including the private sector, universities and research institutions, and relevant non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The seminar was not the first regional activity focused on promoting women's innovation. Earlier this month, the WIPO and the Arab League jointly organised the Eighth Regional Coordination Meeting of the heads of intellectual property offices in the Arab region in Cairo, in cooperation with the Egyptian Patent Office and the Egyptian Academy for Scientific Research and Technology. One of the three working days of the meeting was consecrated to empowering women in the areas of creativity and innovation. There was an exchange of views, experiences and lessons learned, with the aim of enriching tools and instruments and strategies and policies aimed at promoting, encouraging and enhancing women's innovation and creativity in the Arab world. Initiatives from other parts of the world were brought to the attention of participants as a way of opening up broad and extended discussion. However, even before designating encouraging women's innovation and creativity as the theme of World IP Day in 2018, both the WIPO and the Arab League also organised a regional workshop on the same theme at the league's headquarters in Cairo in May 2017. A South Korean NGO specialising in promoting women's innovation was involved, bringing important, geographically distant but still pertinent experience in the field to the attention of IP officials from the Arab countries. Various factors are related to the promotion of women's innovation and creativity. One important activity that can help bring this about is the holding of fairs and exhibitions that can encourage invention, particularly among students, by organising competitions and providing prizes for the winners. Special attention can also be paid to incentives encouraging the participation of women in such fairs, and special prizes can be awarded to female participants. Innovation and creativity are closely related to the educational system, and another factor that can help promote policies supporting women's innovation is the overall educational process, including the curriculum, the training of teachers and other components. Relevant here is the monitoring of the level of participation of women in the educational system and the extent to which they are benefiting from it and being given their equitable share. It is equally important to ensure that role models for women are enshrined in educational curricula and that these encourage the active involvement and full engagement of women in activities related to innovation and creativity. Furthermore, the curriculum should be under periodic and regular review and updated if necessary in order to ensure that it positively contributes to the development of a critical mentality among young people that can help them be more innovative and creative. A third factor related to efforts aimed at encouraging women's innovation is the degree to which partnerships have been developed to promote creativity and innovation among universities, research institutions, industry and public or private institutions focusing on enhancing innovative and creative trends in society, particularly among young people and among young women. Promoting partnerships with other international, regional or sub-regional institutions, as well as foreign institutions in other countries, should always be considered and followed up if perceived to be useful in contributing to the encouragement of women's creativity and innovation. The position of Arab women in the areas of innovation, science and technology has improved over recent years. According to international sources, Arab women's participation in these sectors reached 37 per cent in 2017, quite close to the percentage in even some more-developed economies. However, much more still needs to be done, particularly as it is widely agreed that innovation and creativity are the keys to establishing a knowledge-based economy and a knowledge-based society, a shared goal for many countries in the world today, including those in the Arab world. *This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly
