Activities 2019-2020

At its ninth meeting, in decision 9/14, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP) took note of the “Guidance on the Assessment of Socio-Economic Considerations in the Context of Article 26 of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety” (voluntary Guidance) contained in the annex to document CBD/CP/MOP/9/10. In the same decision, the COP-MOP invited Parties, other Governments, relevant organizations and other stakeholders, as appropriate, to use and submit preliminary experiences using the voluntary Guidance, as well as examples of methodologies and applications of socio-economic considerations in the light of the elements of the voluntary Guidance, preferably in the form of case studies. The COP-MOP also established an online forum on socio-economic considerations through the Biosafety Clearing-House to facilitate moderated discussions to comment and add views to review the submissions. The COP-MOP furthermore extended the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on socio-economic considerations to review the outcomes of the online forum and requested the Executive Secretary to convene a face-to-face meeting of the AHTEG, subject to the availability of resources.

Activities during the intersessional period

Parties, other Governments, relevant organizations and other stakeholders were invited, through Notification 2019-031, to:

1. submit (i) preliminary experiences using the voluntary Guidance, as well as (ii) examples of methodologies and applications of socio-economic considerations, in the light of the elements of the voluntary Guidance, preferably in the form of case studies, and

2. nominate participants for the online discussions

The submissions received are available here.

The moderated online discussion was held from 9 to 20 September 2019. The online forum commented on and added views to review the compilation of submissions. The Executive Secretary selected two rapporteurs, in consultation with the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties, to summarize the work of the moderated online discussions and prepare a report.

A meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on socio-economic considerations was held from 10 to 13 December 2019 in Vienna, Austria. The AHTEG reviewed the outcomes of the online forum and the submissions received. The report of the AHTEG is available here.

The outcomes of the intersessional process were submitted to the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP 10) held in Montreal, Canada from 7-19 December 2022. More information on relevant outcomes of COP-MOP 10 is available here.