In our final blog to mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Doha Declaration, we asked Dr. Bernard Pecoul, then head of MSF’s Access Campaign in 2001, to reflect on MSF’s role in the process, and the impact of the Doha Declaration on MSF’s medical humanitarian work. As well, with his current hat on as Executive Director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), we asked him to reflect on how the twin challenges of access and innovation can be best met today.

In our mini-series to mark the 20th anniversary of the 2001 Doha Declaration, we turn to a lawyer and economist who worked as a consultant to the World Trade Organization (WTO) during the process leading up to the agreement on the declaration. Dr. Carlos Correa also attended the ministerial conference itself in 2001 in Doha, along with all the key actors. He is now the Executive Director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental organisation of developing countries, and continues to work with their governments on issues around intellectual property and public health.

With the recent postponement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Geneva, uncertainty swirls around the fate of the WTO TRIPS Waiver on intellectual property of COVID-19 medical tools, which was to have been central to the ministerial discussions and the culmination of many months of mobilisation and support for the proposal first brought by India and South Africa in October 2020.