Notification 2010-083

Dear Madam/Sir, The Conference of the Parties, in its decision VIII/14, stated that Parties shall submit the fourth national report by 30 March 2009. In the same decision, the Conference of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to facilitate the support to Parties for the preparation of national reports including through organizing regional workshops in this regard. However, our records show that your country is yet to submit the fourth national report and it is very important to have reports from all the Parties for reviewing progress towards the 2010 target, which will be undertaken at the third meeting of the Working Group on Review of the Implementation (Nairobi, 24-28 May 2010) and the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (Nairobi, 18-29 October 2010). In response to the request above, I am therefore pleased to announce that, with the generous support of the Government of Japan and UNEP’s Regional Office for Latin America and Caribbean, a workshop will be held from 15 to 17 June 2010 in Panama City, Panama, for the countries listed below of Latin American and the Caribbean. I believe that this workshop will facilitate the early submission of the fourth national reports of these countries. Accordingly, I would like to invite you to nominate an officer or expert responsible for preparing your country’s fourth national report by no later than 15 May 2010. In doing so, I would like to emphasize that the nominee should be the officer or expert deeply involved in the preparation of the fourth national report and in a position to revise and/or finalize the report within four weeks after the workshop. To make this workshop as productive and useful as possible, all participating countries are required to provide to the Secretariat a draft of their fourth national report by 5 June 2010 and to also bring this draft to the workshop for review. The working languages of the workshop will be English and Spanish. The documents of the workshop will be made available in due course. One participant from each country will be financially supported to attend this workshop. This covers round-trip economy-class air tickets, hotel accommodation and part of daily subsistence allowances to cover meals and incidentals. I look forward to receiving your nomination and, more importantly, your country’s fourth national report soon. We thank you very much for your support and cooperation. Please accept, Madam/Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Executive Secretary

To: CBD National Focal Points of the following countries: Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana, Jamaica, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela