Online discussions on socio-economic considerations

These online discussions were held in September 2019. The forum is now closed.

Background

This online forum on socio-economic considerations was established pursuant to decision CP-9/14.

In this decision, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties took note of the voluntary “Guidance on the Assessment of Socio-Economic Considerations in the context of Article 26 of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety” (as contained in CBD/CP/MOP/9/10, Annex).

The meeting of the Parties invited Parties and observers 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 meeting of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to compile the information submitted and to organize moderated online discussions on the online forum “to comment on and add views to review the compilation of submissions” (decision CP-9/14).

Submissions received

Sixteen submissions were received in response to Notification 2019-031 (14 from Parties, one from another Government and one from an organization). The submissions can be consulted here.

Time and date of the discussions

The discussions on the online forum on socio-economic considerations will be held from 9 September 2019, at 0:00 a.m. GMT to 20 September 2019 at 23:59 p.m. GMT.

Rapporteurs

The discussions will be moderated by two rapporteurs, who have been selected in consultation with the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol. The rapporteurs are: Mr. Ben Durham (South Africa) and Mr. Casper Linnestad (Norway).

Outcomes

A report on the online discussions will be prepared by the rapporteurs.

The outcomes of the discussions will be made available for review by the meeting of the Ad-Hoc Technical Expert Group on Socio-Economic Considerations (AHTEG), to be held from 10 to 13 December 2019 in Vienna, Austria. Together with the submissions made, the AHTEG will review the outcomes of the discussions and use this information to supplement the voluntary Guidance by indicating for which stage in the assessment process, as outlined in the voluntary Guidance, the information might be relevant.

The outcomes of the process will be considered by the meeting of the Parties, at its tenth meeting.

Organization of the discussions

The submissions received contained an array of information, including descriptions of domestic legal and institutional frameworks and the extent to which they allow for the consideration of socio-economic aspects in decision-taking on living modified organisms, descriptions of actual applications of socio-economic considerations in decision-taking and citations of literature.

The online discussions are organized into three forums to allow participants to comment and add views on the issues raised in the submissions.

• A focused discussion on experiences in considering socio-economic aspects in decision taking on LMOs is organized around the submissions providing specific decisions or case studies in which socio-economic aspects were considered (Forum 1).
• A discussion on literature and reports cited in the submissions is intended to facilitate a review of supportive documentation (Forum 2).
• A general discussion will be hosted to provide an opportunity for participants to comment and add views on all submissions, including other general aspects raised in the submissions considered under Forum 1 and Forum 2 (Forum 3).