The first meeting of WIPO's Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a Development Agenda (PCDA) has just ended, amidst a last-minute flurry of activity. The question on everyone's mind is where to from here? The answer is not so clear.

After four days of discussions about interesting proposals from Chile, the Africa Group, Colombia, the United States of America and the 15 countries in the Group of Friends of Development, late yesterday the Chair asked countries to "cluster" the 50-or-so proposals currently on the table under five headings, with the goal of shaping discussions at the next PCDA meeting on June 26-30. That meeting must produce recommendations on a Development Agenda for the WIPO General Assembly.

Now we have two lists of proposals: a set of 66 detailed proposals from the Group of Friends of Development, and a list of 45, including proposals from the Africa Group, Chile, Colombia, and the United States. [UPDATE: The combined list of 111 proposals is now posted on WIPO's website.]

Reflecting the hostility underlying the Genevois diplomatic exchanges this week, the Group B developed countries immediately requested a recess for inter-country consultations on receiving the document from the Group of Friends of Development. When the session resumed, the Chair announced that he would hold informal consultations with Member States before the June meeting on a consolidated list of proposals. So now we wait for June.

We'll be blogging the NGO Coalition's notes of today and the rest of the proceedings here shortly.

Updated, 3/10 - we've now posted notes from days 3-5. See also our reports from days 1 and 2.

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