Declaration of  the Assembly

OAU Conference

Lusaka, Zambia July 2001

The promotion of African traditional medicine is more than ever before on the agenda, African political leaders, scientists as well as lawyers have opened avenue on the speeding up process of the rehabilitation of the African medicine.  The Uganda government has been a supporter and the initiator of the African medicine decades with the strength of the commitment of the search for African solution to health problems of our people.  This was at the recent OAU summit held on July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia.

 

The Assembly:

·        Welcomes the proposal by Uganda to declare the Decade 2001-2010 as the OAU decade for African Traditional Medicine

·        Recognizes the important role Traditional Medicine continues to play in African societies, hence almost 85% of the African population resort to it for their health delivery services

·        Recognizes further that Member states and their governments need to acknowledge and build upon traditional knowledge resource-base, thereby making the goal of health for all easier to achieve by mobilizing and using these resources more effectively

·        Acknowledges that it is unlikely that social, technical or economic changes in Member states over the next decade will reduce significantly the dependency of rural populations on medicinal plants species resources

·        Endorses the Nairobi Declaration formally recognizing Traditional Medicine as the most affordable and accessible form of health care system for the majority of the African population

·        Reiterates its commitment and support for the on-going two processes initiated by the Secretary General of elaborating:

o An African model law for the protection of the rights of local communities.  Farmers and breeders and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources

o  An African biosafety model law and an Africa-wide biosafety system

·        Calls for a speedy finalization for these two processes and calls on member states to use these models as a basis to finalize their national legislation by adapting their provisions to the national context and within the framework of the WTO Negotiations

·        Requests the Secretary General, in collaboration with relevant partners and stakeholders to also initiate a process to draw-up the appropriate elements for national legislation in relation to compulsory licensing, parallel imports and other aspects to incorporate in national patent laws that are important to increase access to vitally needed medicines, and thereafter, to draft a National Model Law of Model elements to be incorporated into national all patent laws in Africa for this purpose

·        Declares the period 2001-2010 the Decade for African Traditional Medicine and requests the Secretary General, in collaboration with WHO and other interested stakeholders to assist OAU member states to prepare a Plan of Action for implementation

·        Finally, call on the Secretary General to make regular reports to the Assembly on progress made in the implementation of this Decision.

 

Approved July 2001 at the OAU Conference in Lusaka, Zambia