On 2 and 3 May 2024, the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Exchange Zone (ZLECAF) visited OAPI’s offices in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
The meeting between Mr. Desire Loumou, Head of the Intellectual Property Rights Division and Fikremarkos Merso, expert in Intellectual Property rights and the General Management of OAPI, was to facilitate initiating constructive dialogues to stimulate innovation and to consider institutional harmonization of intellectual property in the OAPI member states.
The meeting flows from the African Union’s mandate to the ZLECAF Secretariat to seek the expertise of the African regional intellectual property offices to aid protection of IP rights, given the value of IP rights as a national resource.