A sub-regional capacity building workshop on Nagoya Protocol for the
Carribean was held in Georgetown, Guyana on May 19-22, 2014. The objective
of the workshop was to promote further understanding of the Protocol's
requirements and to strengthen capacity to ratify/accede to the Protocol and
prepare for its effective implementation with the view to contributing to
the achievement of Aichi Biodiversity Target 16. The participants were also
introduced to the pilot phase of the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS)
Clearing House and take part in hands-on training on how to use it to find
and retrieve information and how to register and manage records in the
central portal.

Nagoya Protocol aims to provide a greater legal certainty and transparency
for providers and users of genetic resources to strengthen the opportunities
for fair and equitable sharing of benefits from their use. It will be
implemented 90 days after 50 countries have completed the ratification
process.

In his statement, Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary,
Braulio Fereira De Souza Dias, urged all countries in the sub-region to
ratify or accede to the Protocol before July 7, 2014 so they can be part of
the first meeting of the Parties to the Protocol in October 2014 as full
Parties. This will enable them to take important role in the first decisions
upon implementation of the Protocol. He encouraged them to develop concrete
road maps and action plans towards the ratification and implementation of
the Protocol during the workshop.

[www.cbd.int]