4th Meeting on the Preparation of the New Global Biodiversity Framework

Arab delegations participating in the fourth meeting of the International Group on the Preparation of the New Global Framework for Biodiversity beyond 2020, currently held in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, from 21 to 26 June 2022, began their coordination meetings and meetings with the Global Environment Programme, coordinated by the delegation of the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development.

In this context, the headquarters of the Legal Department of the World Environment Programme (UNEP) hosted a joint meeting between UNEP and Arab delegations during which the Department announced its intention to organize training courses for experts and technicians of Arab States in the preparation of national reports on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and its subsidiary bodies.

In his intervention during this meeting, the representative of the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development focused on the distinctive relations between the organization and the programme, which had signed a framework cooperation agreement since 2017 under which several joint activities had been carried out in favour of the Arab DAL, particularly with regard to building the capacity of Arab negotiators in environmental conventions and preparing national reports under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

He noted the organization’s readiness to carry out new joint activities with WFP in the Arab region, before recalling that WFP, along with its member countries, had accompanied the preparation of the new Global Framework for Biodiversity, organizing several preparatory meetings that had enabled the elaboration of a unified Arab position.

One of the most important topics to be addressed by the new framework, such as digital sequencing of genetic resources and others, as the organization intends, following the adoption of the framework by the 15th Convention on Biological Diversity Automator to be held in Montreal, Canada, next December, to place its expertise at the disposal of its member countries in order to set voluntary national targets for the implementation of the new global framework.