Decision COP 16/25

The Conference of the Parties,

Recalling decisions XII/29 of 17 October 2014 and 15/18 of 10 December 2022,

Recognizing the need to further improve the effectiveness of meetings under the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Protocols,

1. Takes note of the recent experience and further suggestions for improving the effectiveness of processes under the Convention and its Protocols summarized in document CBD/SBI/4/11;

2. Requests the Executive Secretary and the Bureaux to draw upon that experience when preparing the organization of work and scenario notes for future meetings and to make those notes available to all Parties in advance of the meetings;

3. Requests the Executive Secretary, together with the Bureaux, to continue to explore and make use of, as appropriate, relevant ways and means to facilitate early preparations for meetings, such as options for streamlining agendas, peer-reviewing documents in advance and the early submission of statements;

4. Recommends that, during the meetings of the open-ended subsidiary bodies, the number of sessions of contact groups and friends of the Chair held in parallel be limited, as much as possible, to the number of delegates per developing country Party whose participation has been supported by the Secretariat;

5. Requests the Executive Secretary to facilitate the identification of additional financial support to increase participation from developing country Parties, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States, and Parties with economies in transition;

6. Decides that, in the case of back-to-back intergovernmental meetings, a free day shall preferably be scheduled after every week, without prejudice to the support provided to eligible delegates;

7. Recognizes the need to limit evening negotiating sessions to reasonable hours to preserve the health of delegates attending intergovernmental meetings, in particular delegates of small delegations, and recommends, unless otherwise agreed, that preferably no session be scheduled beyond 13 hours from the start of the first open-ended meeting of the day;

8. Requests the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties and the Bureau of the Subsidiary Body on Technical and Technological Advice to identify a pool of representatives to serve as chairs of working and contact groups or facilitators of friends of the Chair groups on the basis of their skills in building trust and consensus among those with differing views and their demonstrated knowledge of the issues to be addressed by the groups, well in advance of intergovernmental meetings held under the Convention;

9. Requests that the Executive Secretary, subject to the availability of resources, facilitate an orientation or training session for the representatives identified in paragraph 8 above ahead of the meetings in order to familiarize them with the rules of procedure and established practices, techniques and skills in the areas of managing multilateral negotiations and facilitating consensus, with a view to ensuring ethical approaches and impartiality, in accordance with United Nations standards and principles, including through United Nations-based training modules;

10. Also requests that the Executive Secretary, subject to the availability of resources, facilitate the attendance of the representatives from developing country Parties identified in paragraph 8 above at intergovernmental meetings held under the Convention, without prejudice to the support provided for the participation of their delegations, where feasible;

11. Recommends that the organization of meetings include options to avoid protracted and unfruitful discussions, such as the appropriate use of strategic pauses to enable discussions by small groups and friends of the Chair groups to find possible solutions;

12. Encourages Parties and other Governments to engage with indigenous peoples and local communities, women, youth and other national observer organizations and to solicit views from a wide range of relevant sectors in the process of preparations at the national level for meetings of the governing and subsidiary bodies, to inform the development of their national positions, as appropriate, and taking into account national circumstances;

13. Requests the Executive Secretary, under the guidance of the Bureau:

14. Requests the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties and the Bureau of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to publish scenario notes for each of the intergovernmental meetings held under the Convention and to schedule Bureau meetings at strategic points of the process;

15. Requests the Executive Secretary to enable consultations with Parties, Bureau members, partners and stakeholders, with the support of qualified external experts in the field, as appropriate, to continue to develop options for further improving the effectiveness of meetings under the Convention, and to submit such proposals for consideration by the Subsidiary Body on Implementation at its sixth meeting, with a view to developing a draft decision for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its seventeenth meeting, taking into account recommendation 4/12 of 29 May 2024 of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation, including the compilation of submissions contained in annex II to the recommendation.