REGIONAL ABS CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP FOR EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA Working Group Issues and Recommendations Report.

REGIONAL ABS CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP

FOR EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

Working Group Issues and Recommendations Report

ABS Issues

• Definitions

• Stakeholder Involvement & BS

• Need for ABS Regulations

• Cross Boarder Resources

• Civil War Situation

• Resource Accounting

• General Information Gap

ABS Issues Cont’d

• Capacity Building

• NGOs Commercialisation in GR Use

• Clarity on Inst. Set-up and Responsibility

• Foreign Recognition of Exclusive Jurisdiction of Nat’l Legislation

• Local/International Transparency, Accountability on Science

• Ethics Code

ABS Issues Cont’d

• Mechanisms Needed to Strengthen Interactions Between Local Groups, Science & Decentralisation Approaches

• Genetic Mapping

• Self Organisation of Local Groups

• Mutual Capacity Buidling – local groups into Science

Definitions

• The CBD provides definitions for BR,GR,GM-but these definitions are a result of negotiated compromises and are not necessarily very clear or precise

• As countries try to create & duplicate national ABS systems, they grapple with scope of the system, as they want to create through elaboration

Definition Recommendations

• Internationally: The ABS-WG need to continue work on this agenda item ‘use of terms’

• Nationally: Countries need to think thru ABS system scope they want to create and define terms accordingly

Definitions Recommendations Cont’d

• Where Does ABS end?: Relationship between-farmer’s rights, IPR & ABS development

• Nationally: Implementation of ABS system, countries need to consider how they interact with other obligations such as ITPGR, Patents, PBRs etc.

Stakeholders Involvement & BS

• Need to ensure that relevant indigenous and local communities have ownership/user rights BR, TK, then consider them primary beneficiaries

• Ensure full involvement of relevant local/indigenous communities at all stages of ABS negotiations

• Ensure non-monetary & monetary derived from ABS agreements prioritises poverty alleviation among relevant local/indigenous communities

Stakeholder Involvement & BS Cont’d

• Must provide clear guidelines to ensure fair and equitable ABS agreements development

• Fair and equitable guidelines must provide for flexible ABS agreements ensuring mechanisms of up-front payments and milestone payments or conditional licensing etc.

Stakeholder Involvement Cont’d

• Fair and equitable guidelines must address environmental, social and economic issues on the transfer and commercialisation of BR, GR, TK

Need for ABS Regulations

• CBD gave rise to an opportunity to countries to assert sovereignty over their biological resources.

• Several countries in Africa are yet to adopt comprehensive legislation governing ABS

• Lack of legislation has led to unregulated removal of BR/GR with no obligations BS or PIC

• There are weak/no sanctions on ABS regimes at national and international levels.

Need for ABS Regulations Recommendations

• African countries should establish and strengthen national legislation on ABS on GR and Administrative implementation legislation frameworks

• CBD Secretariat should actively facilitate countries to develop and effectively implement ABS

Need for ABS Regulations –How?

• Document ABS expertise in the region for Capacity Building and Skills exchange

Cross Boarder Resources

• Problem Statement: There are a number of biological/genetic resources that are distributed in or shared by several countries, i.e. Devil’s claw in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa; Basmati rice in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. These shared cross-border resources pose ABS problems for the range states, regarding sovereign rights and ownership, diversity of local names and traditional uses, access, bioprospecting, patenting, benefit-sharing, and marketing.

Cross Boarder Resources Recommendations

• Range states should develop ABS agreement that govern the conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing of the cross-border resource.

• R & D centres from the range states should study and establish the levels of variation, composition of species or varieties/breeds, and extent of distribution of the cross-border resource.

• Central and local governments, and ABS National Focal Points should involve NGOs to promote implementation of ABS arrangements for the cross-border resource.

Civil War Situation

• Civil war situation leads to total break down of Law & Order-Breeding Bad Governance and some int’l organisations exploit local people of their resources

• Compliance of CBD made difficult due to a number of pressures

• High poverty levels leading to resources over exploitation

Civil War Situation Recommendations

• AU through sub-regional bodies to help stop civil war quickly

• UN to improve its responses to war situation in Africa to help conserve resource base

• AU and UN to ensure int’l orgainsations that abuse and indiscriminately over exploit resources during war situation to account for such abuses

• AU-UN provide post war assistance to implement CBD & other Conventions

Resource Accounting & Databases

• Need for country to country resource inventory audit and evaluation through gradual resource inventory/ monitoring exercises to assess rate of use

• Need for a unified database not fragmented at national/regional level a strong monitoring instrument of GR & BR

Resource Accounting & Databases Cont’d

• Need to develop value tag for resources at a low/high end to avoid exploitation exegarations

• Several Resource defection channels and individual involvement in research source of biopiracy GR/BR off take

• Ensure stakeholders accountability important for reducing abuse of resources

Resource Accounting & Databases Recommendations

• Individual countries carryout resource audits, evaluation and valuation to enhance accountability & safeguard against piracy with a known baseline position

• Country document IK for special local database without publishing it. Leave under protection and country capacity remains protection measure

General Information Gap

• Local community information gaps on Biological resources is enormous in Africa

• Due to cultural differences and biases of interest to specific attachment to certain resources

• Communication levels and mechanisms lacking on inventory status of biodiversity for all classes of people

General Information Gap Cont’d

• Illeteracy levels are high/how to read and write this is a set back on any ABS work

• Increased public awareness using modern mechanisms is limited

General Information Gap Recommendations

• There is need to carryout mass education/awareness on the GR/BR importance of databases of individual countries to avoid any abuse out of ignorance of Genetic or Biological presence

General Information Gaps

• National/regional level information gaps on resources availability, distribution and abundance

• Who are the resource custodians?

• Why do high level structure loose geographical resource truthing for basic monitoring

• Institutional funding for information material is only understood from above and not at community level

General Information Gaps Cont’d

• Loss of up date information system in respect to changes on GR/BR on the ground

• Lack of devolution of relevant information/relevancy ratings to help increase awareness at all levels equally

General Information Gaps Recommendations

• There is need to ensure all information gaps are taken care of. As causing such gaps entails serious consequencies for GR/BR use & management

• Need to develop full disclosure system in a transparent manner

Capacity Building

• Lack of understanding on CBD, ABS, WTO, Biosafety issues

• Inadequate skilled ABS institutional frameworks

• Inadequate information on GR/BR/ABS

• Lack of adequate skills on valuation of resources

• Lack of general awareness on ABS issues

Capacity Building Recommendations

• Need for awareness creation on ABS, WTO, Biosafety, IPR etc.

• Create functional ABS Inst. Frameworks• Develop user friendly information packs

on GR/BR/ABS related issues• Develop skills in resource valuation• Develop and initiate awareness

programmes on ABS regulations formulation processes

NGO s Role & Commercialisation

• Problem Statement: Local and international NGOs have been helpful in complementing efforts of developing countries to achieve sustainable development.

• NGOs have also been good advocacy in the promotion of wise management of the environment.

NGO’s Role & Commercialisation

• Furthermore, NGOs have been helpful in assisting developing countries negotiators understand political, technical, scientific and technological issues underlying critical issues during UN intergovernmental meetings.

• However, the good NGO work is being overshadowed by the growing NGOs involvement in making profits from commercialisation of biological/genetic resources.

• It has also been sadly observed that activities of such NGOs are killing the ABS Approach by promoting biopiracy activities.

NGO’s Commercialisation Recommendations

• National governments should stop at once the involvement of any NGO in commercialisation of biological/genetic resources.

• National governments should enforce the code of conduct of NGOs regarding profit-making and their involvement in activities that undermine the ABS regimes.

NGO’s Commercialisation Recommendations cont’d

• Capacity-building on ABS should benefit both local and international NGOs.

• National governments should involve NGOs in developing and implementing ABS policies, regulations and laws.

Clarity on Inst. Set up & responsibility on Science

• Problem Statement: The implementation of the obligations of the CBD in most countries, including ABS, is under the ministry responsible for Environment or their equivalents.

• This ensures that coordination of the activities of the Convention and associated instruments are carried out and consolidated by a single organisation.

Clarity on Inst. Set up & responsibility on Science cont’d

• The long implementation experience, networking and institutional relationships gained over the years become a valuable asset for the responsible ministry.

• Furthermore, unlike small and/or non-environment or conservation departments or institutions, environment ministries have comparative advantages of scale finance, and personnel that enable them to implement ABS matters at national and local level.

Ethical Code

• National: Countries should work to identify users of GR/BR within jurisdiction, facilitate, encourage and collaborate in developing code of ethics

• International: ABS and CBD Article (8j) working group should call on scientific users of GR Code of Ethics

Local/national Transparency & Accountability & Science

• National: Creating, implementing and administering ABS systems there is need for countries to act in a transparent and accountable manner

• Locally: There must also be full disclosure, transparency & accountability for ABS being carried out at local level by government, and users/scientists

Foreign Recognition of Excl. Jurisdiction of Nat’l Legislation

• Problem Statement: Many developing countries have enacted legislation or made regulations and policies to regulate ABS.

• In some countries, the ABS regulatory frameworks are effective and are respected by both nationals and foreigners.

Foreign Recognition of Excl. Jurisdiction of Nat’l Legislation

• However, there is a growing tendency by some foreign organisations and companies from developed countries that undermine national ABS regimes that regulate proper access to biological/genetic resources and/or their associated indigenous knowledge without PIC/MTA or any agreeable MOU.

•

Foreign Recognition of Excl. Jurisdiction of Nat’l Legislation

• Such organisations and companies get access by directly using use their economic mighty, while in some cases the biopiracy is done under some bilateral agreements or projects meant to address socio-economic empowerment in rural areas.

Mechanisms to Strengthen Interactions between Local Groups/Science

• Interactions between Gvt. And local groups very minimal

• There is lack of appreciation of the fact that local groups are resource managers, owners of basic environmental knowledge

• Modern science has been made to look like its superior to IK/TK

• This widening lack of interaction & information gap

Mechanisms to Strengthen Interactions between Local Groups/Science

Recommendations• Mechanisms should be developed that link

scientific work to local people’s livelihoods at all levels

• Scientific programmes should use IK as basic primary science

• Development of Strategies on how to communicate scientific findings/work and decisions

Mapping Requirements for GR/BR

• There is currently very scanty up to date inventory data or information on GR/BR

• Most policy development on ABS processes are not supported by scientific inventory GR/BR data

Mapping Requirements for GR/BR Recommendations

• Science to provide mapping resources inventory requires permanent mapping strategy to ensure timely monitoring and assessment, distribution and associated ecological factors

• By using the modern methods i.e. GIS, on digitised maps for good decision making for the local communities on what is in stock

Mapping Requirements for GR/BR Recommendations

• For other Biological resources gene mapping to safe guard individual species and other wise can be categorised according to need

• Individual countries need resource mapping as a requirement for the baseline data from which decision for exploitation and management can be made

Self-Organisation of local groups

• Local and indigenous groups are very weak organisational wise in trying to raise awareness, empowerment on CBD, ABS issues

Self-Organisation of local groupsRecommendations

• There is need for local groups capacity building on sustainable use of GR/BR

• Capacity building for local groups in negitiations skills, governance, ABS mechanisms

•

Mutual Capacity Building At All Levels

• There is tendency to plan capacity building programmes in a top down approach. This is in view of local people being seen as inferior

Mutual Capacity Building At All Levels Recommendations

• There is need for mutual capacity building all levels in order to enhance mutual agreements, acceptance and open participation

Human Genetic Resource

• It is clear that the African Model Law guides the African Union member countries to the fact that patenting of life form is not allowed.

• It is important that discussions should continue to address human genetic resources, related research, information and ABS in relation to an international legal framework.

• However, there is a growing tendency by some foreign organisations and companies from developed countries that undermine national ABS regimes that regulate proper access to biological/genetic resources and/or their associated indigenous knowledge without PIC/MTA or any agreeable MOU.

• Such organisations and companies get access by directly using use their economic mighty, while in some cases the biopiracy is done under some bilateral agreements or projects meant to address socio-economic empowerment in rural areas.

• However, there is a growing tendency by some foreign organisations and companies from developed countries that undermine national ABS regimes that regulate proper access to biological/genetic resources and/or their associated indigenous knowledge without PIC/MTA or any agreeable MOU.

• Such organisations and companies get access by directly using use their economic mighty, while in some cases the biopiracy is done under some bilateral agreements or projects meant to address socio-economic empowerment in rural areas.

• However, there is a growing tendency by some foreign organisations and companies from developed countries that undermine national ABS regimes that regulate proper access to biological/genetic resources and/or their associated indigenous knowledge without PIC/MTA or any agreeable MOU.

• Such organisations and companies get access by directly using use their economic mighty, while in some cases the biopiracy is done under some bilateral agreements or projects meant to address socio-economic empowerment in rural areas.

• However, there is a growing tendency by some foreign organisations and companies from developed countries that undermine national ABS regimes that regulate proper access to biological/genetic resources and/or their associated indigenous knowledge without PIC/MTA or any agreeable MOU.

• Such organisations and companies get access by directly using use their economic mighty, while in some cases the biopiracy is done under some bilateral agreements or projects meant to address socio-economic empowerment in rural areas.