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WGRI Recommendation

. National reporting

1/9.National reporting

The Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Review of Implementation of the Convention
1.Recommends that the Conference of the Parties:
(a)Recognizes the need to align the national reporting process with the framework for evaluating implementation of the Convention and progress towards the 2010 target;
(b)Underscores the need to reduce overall reporting burdens on Parties, taking into account reporting obligations under other Conventions, and other relevant processes;
(c)Decides that the fourth and subsequent national reports should be outcome oriented and focus on the status and trends of biodiversity, national actions and outcomes with respect to the achievement of the 2010 target and the goals of the Strategic Plan of the Convention, and progress in implementation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans;
(d)Decides that Parties shall submit their fourth national reports by 30 March 2009;
(e)Invites Parties that anticipate that they may encounter difficulty in completing their reports according to the date set by the Conference of the Parties to advise the Secretariat in advance;
(f)Recommends that regional and/or subregional workshops could facilitate the preparation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans and national reports, and the exchange of experiences on implementation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans and on assessment of obstacles for the implementation of the Convention to achieve the objectives of subparagraph (c) above, and requests resourcing for these workshops be considered in budget deliberations at the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties;
(g)Invites the Global Environment Facility to explore and establish easier and expeditious mechanisms for the provision of funds to eligible countries for preparing their future national reports;
(h)Decides that Parties will be invited to submit complementary reports on thematic programmes that are due for in-depth review according to the multi-year programme of work of the Conference of the Parties up to 2010 and accordingly, invites Parties, on a voluntary basis, to prepare complementary thematic reports according to the schedule in annex I below;
(i)Decides to establish an on-line reporting facility, through the clearing-house mechanism, for use by Parties on a voluntary basis as a planning tool;
(j)Decides that the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook shall be prepared for publication at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2010 and that it shall be based on the third and fourth national reports as well as other information received on progress towards the 2010 target;
(k)Agrees to base its review of the implementation of the Convention at its tenth meeting primarily on the basis of the third and fourth national reports as well as on the analysis in the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook;
(l)Welcomes the initiative of the five biodiversity-related conventions, through the Biodiversity Liaison Group, to:
(i)Keep each other informed of proposed developments in national reporting under each of the conventions, with a view to aligning approaches where possible;
(ii)Develop a Web portal with links to reports and guidelines of each of the conventions, similar to the Collaborative Portal on Forests;
(iii)Develop common reporting modules for specific themes, where possible, and appropriate;
(m)Takes note of the recommendations from the UNEP-WCMC Workshop Towards the Harmonization of National Reporting to Biodiversity-related Treaties, which was held in September 2004 (UNEP/CBD/WGRI/1/INF/6), and encourages the Biodiversity Liaison Group, in liaison with UNEP-WCMC, to give further consideration to issues of harmonization of reporting among the biodiversity-related conventions, and to develop proposals;
(n)Encourages Parties to harmonize the gathering and management of data for the five biodiversity-related conventions at the national level, where appropriate;
2.Requests the Executive Secretary:
(a)To develop, by January 2006, for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its eighth meeting, draft guidelines for the fourth national report, undertaking consultation with Parties in this process and taking into consideration the views expressed by Parties at the current meeting, including the elements contained in annex II below;
(b)To finalize these guidelines in light of the decisions of the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties and to make them available to Parties and other Governments by 1 July 2006;
(c)To identify additional ways and means to facilitate timely submission of national reports by Parties, and to report to the Conference of the Parties at its eighth or ninth meeting on options;
3.Notes the need for Parties who have not completed their third national reports to do so expeditiously.

Annex I

SCHEDULE OF COMPLEMENTARY REPORTS ON THEMATIC PROGRAMMES 6

Thematic area 7 In-depth review By COP / By SBSTTA 8 Date due for review
Forest biodiversity COP-9 / SBSTTA-12 September 2006
Agricultural biodiversity COP-9 / SBSTTA-13 March 2007
Inland waters biodiversity COP-10 / SBSTTA-14 July 2008
Mountain biodiversity COP-10 / SBSTTA-14 July 2008
Marine and coastal biodiversity COP-10 / SBSTTA-15 March 2009
Island biodiversity t.b.d. / t.b.d. t.b.d.

Annex II

SUGGESTED PRINCIPLES AND ELEMENTS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN DEVELOPING THE GUIDELINES FOR THE FOURTH NATIONAL REPORT

1.National reports should:
(a)Use the goals, targets and indicators of the global framework in decision VII/30, where they are nationally relevant;
(b)Be outcome-oriented;
(c)Present results of monitoring designed to describe national trends;
(d)Relate to national biodiversity strategies and action plans;
(e)Report on the 2010 target;
(f)Assess and facilitate national implementation of the Convention rather than making comparisons among countries;
(g)Facilitate self-assessment;
(h)Serve multiple communication purposes;
(i)Be useful to the decision-making processes of the Convention and lend themselves to synthesis;
(j)Facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in the implementation of the Convention;
(k)Facilitate harmonized reporting, where possible, by using joint reporting modules with biodiversity-related conventions and other relevant processes.
2.National reports should allow Parties to provide information on:
(a)The status and trends of biodiversity, with a focus on the outcomes of actions taken to achieve the 2010 target and the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan;
(b)Progress and effectiveness of the measures implemented towards achieving the 2010 target and the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan and priority actions in national biodiversity strategies and action plans;
(c)The current status of national biodiversity strategies and action plans;
(d)The results of efforts to mainstream biodiversity into relevant sectors;
(e)Success stories in implementation, drawing on, inter alia, case studies;
(f)Obstacles and challenges, taking into account but not limited to the appendix to the Strategic Plan of the Convention.
3.The guidelines should:
(a)Be short, simple, use clear language, and avoid repetition;
(b)Use the structure of the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan and the framework for assessing progress in implementing the Convention as in decision VII/30;
(c)Explain the purpose of the reporting exercise and what use will be made of the reported information;
(d)Identify which of the reporting requests are used by other biodiversity-related conventions or processes;
(e)Use a modular approach to facilitate multiple uses of the same information;
(f)Provide cross-references between information being requested and the multi-year programme of work of the Conference of the Parties.
1/81/1

6Additional complementary reports on cross-cutting issues may be considered.
7The dry and sub-humid lands programme of work will be reviewed at the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties.
8The precise allocation of thematic areas to sessions of SBSTTA will be finalized following discussion with the SBSTTA Bureau.