MOP Decisión

. Operation and activities of the Biosafety Clearing-House

`BS-VII/2.`Operation and Activities of the Biosafety Clearing-House

The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety,

Considering the general operation of the Biosafety Clearing-House, the ongoing implementation of its programme of work and the progress report on the implementation of the objectives of the Strategic Plan, ²

Welcoming the improvements made to the central portal of the Biosafety Clearing-House,

Commending both the United Nations Environment Programme-Global Environment Facility BCH II project and the Secretariat for the support provided to Parties on their use of the Biosafety Clearing-House during the intersessional period,

Reiterating the need for capacity building in the use of the Biosafety Clearing-House,

1.Requests the Executive Secretary:

(a)To facilitate communication for the editing and updating of records submitted by Parties to the Biosafety Clearing-House;

(b)To continue developing the Biosafety Clearing-House, taking due account of the needs of its users and with special emphasis on activities relating to the harmonization of and capacity-building for monitoring of living modified organisms, for example through the Network of Laboratories for the Detection and Identification of Living Modified Organisms;

(c)To continue its collaboration with other biosafety databases and platforms, including those of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, other clearing-houses of the Convention and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;

(d)To improve the Biosafety Clearing-House search interfaces in a way that allows the grouping of results by thematic areas;

(e)To complete the translation of all decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties in all six official languages of the United Nations;

(f)To continue the development of online forums given their effectiveness in capacity-building in the implementation of the Biosafety Clearing-House;

2.Urges Parties and invites other Governments:

(a)To inform their representatives in other international forums of the possibility of retrieving electronically all data registered in the Biosafety Clearing-House in order to make them available through other related websites;

(b)To register in the Biosafety Clearing-House all their final decisions on the first intentional transboundary movement of living modified organisms for intentional introduction into the environment of the Party of import and related risk assessments as requested under the Protocol, with special emphasis on the first intentional transboundary movement of living modified organisms intended for field trials, since this category is currently underrepresented in the Biosafety Clearing-House, while recalling paragraph 1(a) of decision BS-V/2;

3.Invites Parties, other Governments and relevant international and regional organizations:

(a)To undertake or support capacity-building initiatives to assist developing country Parties in putting in place facilities enabling them to submit consistent, up-to-date and complete information through the Biosafety Clearing-House and their national reports;

(b)To provide funding and to strengthen and expand initiatives, as much as possible in a coordinated way, aimed at overcoming obstacles encountered by developing country Parties, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States among them, and Parties with economies in transition, in meeting their obligations under Article 20 of the Protocol, including capacity-building, training and the development of infrastructure necessary for facilitating the retrieval and submission of information to the Biosafety Clearing-House, while recalling paragraph 10 of decision BS-V/2;

4.Invites the United Nations Environment Programme, in its implementation of the BCH III project:

(a)To develop further guidance on the use of the Biosafety Clearing-House with special attention to (i) customs and border control officials and (ii) promotion of public awareness, education and participation;

(b)To promote, to the extent possible, regional synergies with Parties that have participated in the BCH II project;

5.Invites the United Nations Environment Programme and other Global Environment Facility implementing agencies to start assessing further needs of developing country Parties relating to the use of the Biosafety Clearing-House, taking into account the needs of the least developed countries and small island developing States among them, with the aim of promptly submitting to the Global Environment Facility proposals for new capacity-building projects, or project components, tailored to address national and regional needs in the implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;

6.Invites Parties, in consultation with the United Nations Environment Programme and other Global Environment Facility implementing agencies, to assess lessons learned from using the advisory system to build capacity in the effective participation in the Biosafety Clearing-House and the possibilities for using such a system to build the capacity for effective participation in other clearing-houses of the Convention on Biological Diversity.