Notification 2011-056

Dear Madam/Sir, In accordance with decision X/1, the first meeting of the Open-ended Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol (ICNP-1) is to be held from 6 to 10 June 2011 and is to be preceded by a one-day meeting to elect its Bureau and agree on other organizational matters. In light of this decision, arrangements have been made for the opening of the first meeting of the ICNP to be held on 5 June at 3:00 pm. This should be a short meeting focusing on organizational matters, in particular the election of the members of the ICNP Bureau and of one of the Co-Chairs of the Intergovernmental Committee. The ICNP will then address substantive issues on its agenda as of Monday morning (6th June). Parties are also reminded that a capacity-building workshop on Access and Benefit-sharing will be held prior to the meeting of the ICNP on 4-5 June 2011. This workshop is being jointly organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The workshop will run from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, 4th June, and will continue from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, 5th June. Further information regarding the capacity-building workshop will be communicated to Parties shortly. Government’s officially designated representatives selected to receive financial support to participate in the first meeting of the ICNP will also be funded to participate in the capacity-building workshop and should therefore indicate their interest in participating in the workshop when registering for the meeting. Subject to the availability of funds in the Special Voluntary Trust Fund (BZ), the Secretariat will finance the participation of one representative to both meetings from each of the developing country Parties to the Convention, in particular, the least developed countries and small-island developing States amongst them, and Parties with economies in transition. Parties are kindly reminded that the deadline to communicate to the Secretariat the name(s) and coordinates of their representative(s) to the meeting of the ICNP is Friday, 8 April 2011. Designation of representatives to attend the meeting should be submitted through an official letter addressed to the Executive Secretary by fax to +1 514 288 6588, or by email as a scanned attachment to secretariat@cbd.int. An information note to participants prepared for the first meeting of the ICNP and the capacity-building workshop is available on the CBD website at the following address: http://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=ICNP-01. Given that Montreal will be the host of a number of international events during this period, participants are urged to make their hotel bookings as soon as possible in order to secure a room. Please accept, Madam/Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Executive Secretary

To: CBD National Focal Points, ABS National Focal Points and ICNP National Focal Points