Please download Communiqué Final du GTBAC 19

 
Organized by the Executive Secretariat of COMIFAC with technical and financial support from the GIZ "Support COMIFAC" project, the meeting was held from 24 to 28 March 2014 in the DRC with the specific aim of assessing GTBAC’s activities. It attracted representatives of the COMIFAC countries as well as representatives of sub-regional, international and civil society organizations namely: COMIFAC, RAPAC, IUCN, GIZ, JICA, REFADD, REPALEAC, REPAR and REJEFAC.

 
The meeting comes at a time when there is an increasingly vital need to involve indigenous and local communities in GTBAC’s efforts and COMIFAC countries are being urged to speed up ratification of the ABS protocol.

 
The deliberations of the 19th GTBAC meeting allowed participants to:

- Evaluate progress in drafting the fifth National reports on Biodiversity and review the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) and implementation of the process related to Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits (ABS) arising from their use at national and subregional level;

- Equally follow two presentations reporting progress in the development of two sub-regional Abs-related projects funded respectively by GEF / UNEP and BMZ / GIZ;

- Assess implementation of COP 11 decisions;

- Discuss the reports of the following meetings: Second Plenary Session of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2), Third meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee (ICNP 3) on ABS, workshop on financial resource mobilization, Eighth Pan-African Workshop on ABS, Expert meeting on the African Union’s guidelines on ABS and the Third International Forum of Indigenous peoples of Central Africa (FIPAC III).

 
At the end of the meeting in which the participants showed a keen interest in GTBAC’s activities, a number of resolutions were taken. Participants, among other things:

 
- Took note of progress made ​​in elaborating the 5th reports and called on each country to submit its report to the CBD Secretariat, before the set deadline of 31 March 2014;

- Also took note of progress in the NBSAPs review process and urged each country to finalize the process prior to COP 12;

- Noted that only two countries (Gabon and Rwanda) had ratified the Nagoya Protocol on ABS and encouraged the other countries to follow suit;

- Lauded the States’ efforts to implement COP 11 decisions;

- And reaffirmed their support for the implementation of the COMIFAC Council of Ministers’ decision to allocate a percentage of the budget for COMIFAC-coordinated projects to the Institution’s Executive Secretariat.

 
The participants also seized the opportunity to make recommendations for better implementation of activities to various agencies involved in GTBAC’s activities, namely COMIFAC ES, UNEP, GIZ, IUCN, Governments / Focal points, REPALAEAC and member partners of GTBAC. On this note, the participants left Kinshasa looking forward to meeting again at GTBAC 20.

 
All the recommendations may be consulted in the final communiqué issued by the meeting HERE: Communiqué Final du GTBAC 19