STDF WORKSHOP ON SPS CAPACITY EVALUATION TOOLS31 March 2008

Erie Tamale, Programme Officer Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

www.cbd.int

Capacity Assessment Under the Cartagena Protocol on

BiosafetyCBDCBD

Presentation Outline

Part I: Background to CB under the Protocol

Part II: CB Needs Assessment

Part III: Preliminary Set of Indicators

Part IV: Concluding Remarks

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PART I: Brief Background to the Protocol

• Negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

• Adopted 29 January 2000 after 4 years of intense negotiations

• Entry into force: 9 September 2003• 143 ratifications/ accessions• 3 meeting of the governing body (COP-

MOP); 42 substantive decisions• Next COP-MOP: 12 - 16 May 2008; Bonn,

Germany

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Objective of the Protocol

To contribute to ensuring the safe transfer, handling and use of LMOs resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on the biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health

*In accordance with the precautionary approach

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CB Under the Protocol

Article 22 (Capacity-building):• Parties shall cooperate in the development and/or

strengthening of human resources and institutional capacities in biosafety

• Needs of DC & EIT country Parties for financial resources and access to and transfer of technology and know-how shall be taken fully into account

Article 28 (Financial mechansim9:• GEF to take into account the needs of DC & EIT

country Parties

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CB Tools & Processes

• CB Action Plan adopted in 2004

• Coordination Mechanism

• Implementation toolkit (checklist)

• Preliminary set of indicators

• Online needs assessment questionnaire through the BCH

CBDCBDCB Action Plan

Elements of the AP:• Institutional capacity building (including national regulatory

frameworks) • Human-resources development and training • Scientific and technical expertise • Legal, social and economic expertise • Risk assessment and other scientific and technical expertise • Risk management • Public awareness, education and participation • Information exchange and data management (and the BCH) • Scientific, technical and institutional collaboration • Technology transfer • Identification of LMOs • Socio-economic considerations

CBDCBD CB Needs Assessment • MOP decision BS-I/5 – Parties invited to submit their needs

& priorities (online through the BCH or using a common format (questionnaire)

• Over 50 countries have submitted their needs/priorities• Parties required to periodically update their records in the

needs database (http://bch.biodiv.org/Pilot/CapacityBuilding/SearchCapacityNeeds.aspx)

• Needs synthesis reports prepared by the SCBD for COP-MOP and donors

• Problem: Limited updates of the country records

CBDCBDPreliminary set of indicators

• In decision BS-1/5 (Annex V), MOP adopted a preliminary set of indicators for monitoring implementation of the CB Action Plan

• Governments and relevant organizations were invite to use the indicators to monitor their biosafety CB initiatives and share their experiences and lessons learned

• There is limited experience so far• COP-MOP 4 to review the indicators and propose

improvements for their use

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Measures to promote use of the indicators(to be considered by MOP-4)

• Incorporation of the indicators into the format for the national reports which are mandatory under the Protocol (this would encourage systematic use of the indicators by all Parties)

• Synthesis of the reports by the CBD to develop a global picture of the progress made in building capacities to address different issues

• Inclusion of a scale to enable users to rate the status or level of existing capacity against the different indicators (0 (zero or non-existent); 1 (low or somewhat in place; 2 (medium or partially in place), 3 (high or mostly in place); and 4 (very high or fully in place)

CBDCBD Other ways of using the indicators

Use of the indicator framework in:• Stocktaking to establish capacity-building

baselines and benchmarks• Assessing and reporting CB needs and priorities• Designing of projects and policies and setting

targets• Monitoring and evaluating the perfomance of

biosafety projects and activities

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Concluding Remarks

• Different CB assessment and evaluation tools have been developed under the Protocol are not yet effectively utilized

• There is limited experience with using CB assessment and evaluation tools under the Protocol but progress is being made

• There is a need to share experiences and lessons learned from other processes.

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Contacts for Further Information

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity413 Saint-Jacques Street, suite 800

Montreal, QuebecCanada H2Y 1N9

Tel.: +1 (514) 288-2220Fax: +1 (514) 288-6588

E-mail: secretariat@cbd.int

Protocol website: http://www.cbd.int/biosafety Biosafety Clearing-House: http://bch.cbd.int/

CBDCBDTHANK YOU!

Website for the fourth COP-MOPhttp://www.cbd.int/mop4/