The Conference of the Parties serving as the
meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on
Biosafety,
1.Requests the Executive Secretary:
(a)To
facilitate communication for the editing and updating of records
submitted by Parties to the Biosafety Clearing-House;
(b)To
continue developing the Biosafety Clearing-House, taking due
account of the needs of its users and with special emphasis on
activities relating to the harmonization of and capacity-building
for monitoring of living modified organisms, for example through
the Network of Laboratories for the Detection and Identification of
Living Modified Organisms;
(c)To
continue its collaboration with other biosafety databases and
platforms, including those of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, other clearing-houses of the Convention and
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
(d)To improve
the Biosafety Clearing-House search interfaces in a way that allows
the grouping of results by thematic areas;
(e)To
complete the translation of all decisions of the Conference of the
Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties in all six official
languages of the United Nations;
(f)To
continue the development of online forums given their effectiveness
in capacity-building in the implementation of the Biosafety
Clearing-House;
2.Urges
Parties and invites other Governments:
(a)To inform
their representatives in other international forums of the
possibility of retrieving electronically all data registered in the
Biosafety Clearing-House in order to make them available through
other related websites;
(b)To
register in the Biosafety Clearing-House all their final decisions
on the first intentional transboundary movement of living modified
organisms for intentional introduction into the environment of the
Party of import and related risk assessments as requested under the
Protocol, with special emphasis on the first intentional
transboundary movement of living modified organisms intended for
field trials, since this category is currently underrepresented in
the Biosafety Clearing-House, while recalling paragraph 1(a) of
decision
BS-V/2;
3.Invites
Parties, other Governments and relevant international and regional
organizations:
(a)To
undertake or support capacity-building initiatives to assist
developing country Parties in putting in place facilities enabling
them to submit consistent, up-to-date and complete information
through the Biosafety Clearing-House and their national
reports;
(b)To provide
funding and to strengthen and expand initiatives, as much as
possible in a coordinated way, aimed at overcoming obstacles
encountered by developing country Parties, in particular the least
developed countries and small island developing States among them,
and Parties with economies in transition, in meeting their
obligations under Article 20 of the Protocol, including
capacity-building, training and the development of infrastructure
necessary for facilitating the retrieval and submission of
information to the Biosafety Clearing-House, while recalling
paragraph 10 of
decision
BS-V/2;
4.Invites
the United Nations Environment Programme, in its implementation of
the BCH III project:
(a)To develop
further guidance on the use of the Biosafety Clearing-House with
special attention to (i) customs and border control officials and
(ii) promotion of public awareness, education and
participation;
(b)To
promote, to the extent possible, regional synergies with Parties
that have participated in the BCH II project;
5.Invites
the United Nations Environment Programme and other Global
Environment Facility implementing agencies to start assessing
further needs of developing country Parties relating to the use of
the Biosafety Clearing-House, taking into account the needs of the
least developed countries and small island developing States among
them, with the aim of promptly submitting to the Global Environment
Facility proposals for new capacity-building projects, or project
components, tailored to address national and regional needs in the
implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
6.Invites
Parties, in consultation with the United Nations Environment
Programme and other Global Environment Facility implementing
agencies, to assess lessons learned from using the advisory system
to build capacity in the effective participation in the Biosafety
Clearing-House and the possibilities for using such a system to
build the capacity for effective participation in other
clearing-houses of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
