On 15 September Dr Duncan Matthews will give a public lecture at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The lecture will outline patterns of recent activity by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in relation to intellectual property issues negotiated at the WTO, WIPO, WHO, CBD-COP and the FAO. It will explain how and why international NGOs play an important role by supporting the work of developing country delegates to these multinational institutions and will suggest the further activities that NGOs could undertake to enhance their role. The lecture will then describe how NGOs in the Global South (with particular emphasis on Brazil, India and South Africa) have been able to play a such crucial role in addressing the negative impacts of intellectual property rights at the domestic level and will suggest how these NGOs could make more effective inputs in the future.