Notification 2005-005

Dear Madam/Sir, At its first meeting, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol in its decision BS-1/5, adopted an Action Plan for the Effective Implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and a Coordination Mechanism for the implementation of the Action Plan to facilitate exchange of information with a view to promoting partnerships and maximizing complementarities and synergies between various capacity building initiatives. A Liaison Group on Capacity-building for Biosafety was established as one of the elements of the Coordination Mechanism. The Liaison Group meeting will be held at the premises of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada, from 27 to 28 January 2005, to provide advice to the Executive Secretary on ways and means to enhance coordination and international cooperation in implementation of the Action Plan. It will also assist the Executive Secretary in developing guidance and tools to promote capacity-building for biosafety and in preparation of relevant documentation, including provision of input and peer-review of the draft pre-session documents. I am pleased to convey herewith the composition of the Liaison Group. The composition was determined by the Secretariat taking into account the participants’ demonstrated expertise and experience in the field of capacity-building, a balanced geographical distribution between regions, and fair representation of relevant stakeholders. _________________________________________________ LIAISON GROUP ON CAPACITY-BUILDING FOR BIOSAFETY LIST OF INVITEES 1. Alejandra Sarquis, Ministry of Agriculture, Argentina 2. Donald Cooper, Bahamas Environment Science and Technology Commission 3. Ana Lucia Assad, Ministry of Science and Technology, Brazil 4. Atanas Atanassov, AgroBioInstitute, Bulgaria 5. Sergiy Gubar, Ministry of Environmental Protection of Ukraine 6. Chris Viljoen, University of Free State, South Africa 7. Gado Tchangbedji, Togo 8. Charles Mugoya, National Council of Science and Technology, Uganda 9. Zhuang Guotai, State Environmental Protection Administration, China 10. S.R. Rao, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India 11. Koichi Ito, Global Environment Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan 12. Julia Kaiser, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) 13. François Pythoud, Agency for Environment, Forests and Landscape, Switzerland 14. Marcus Ballinger, Environment Canada 15. Mario Ramos, GEF Secretariat 16. Christopher Briggs, UNEP-GEF Biosafety Unit 17. Andrea Sonnino, Senior Agricultural Research Officer, FAO 18. Niek van der Graff, International Plant Protection Convention, IPPC 19. Decio Ripandelli, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) 20. Emile Frison, Director-General, IPGRI 21. Li Lin Lim, Third World Network 22. L. Val Giddings, Global Industry Coalition (GIC) 23. M.T. Mahdavi, The Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)

Executive Secretary

To: Cartagena Protocol National Focal Points CBD National Focal Points (where CPB have not yet been nominated) Relevant international organizations