Informal Meeting of Friends of BBNJ Capacity Development and Related Capacity Development Efforts

An Informal Meeting of Friends of BBNJ Capacity Development was held on Tuesday, August 27 2019, 18:15 to 19:45 in Room S-1522FC/S-1523FC, 15th Floor, UN Secretariat. Convened by the Global Ocean Forum and the State of Palestine, the event drew 52 Member States, UN agencies, and civil society participants to actively consider and act on ways of ad­vancing capacity building with adequate financing in the BBNJ process. Please find the official leaflet of the informal meeting here.

A well-structured BBNJ capacity building system involving global, regional, and national levels, and with adequate and stable financial support, will be essential for achieving the major purposes of the BBNJ Agreement. Capacity Development and Technology Transfer, the fourth major issue being addressed in the BBNJ process, is in fact, the “enabler” of the other three major issues (marine genetic resources and access to benefit sharing, area-based manage­ment, and environmental impact assessment).

The meeting provided an informal opportunity for discussing how an informal “Friends” group could assist Member States in achieving, and ultimately implementing, a set of ambitious capac­ity building measures in the International Agreement, by, e.g.: 1. Providing additional infor­mation/knowledge/research on issues requiring additional clarification; 2. Providing a forum for informal discussion of the issues; 3. Promoting pathways for the identification and eventual mobilization of resources from public and private sources to support capacity development and technology transfer. Please find the draft questions discussed at the meeting here.

Please find the official summary report of the meeting here.

Friends of BBNJ Capacity Event 27 Aug 2019 (c).jpeg

The meeting referenced two multi-author, multi-institutional Policy Briefs on capacity development:

–A Policy Brief on Capacity Development as a Key Aspect of a New International Agreement on Marine Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ)

–A Policy Brief on Capacity Development for Implementing the BBNJ Agreement:  Possible Modalities for Addressing Area-Based Management, Environmental Impact Assessment, and Marine Genetic Resources in the Context of Climate Change 

Please find a summary of the two Policy Briefs on Capacity Development here.

A brief overview/synopsis of the GEF/FAO/GOF project on Strengthening Global Capacity to Effectively Manage Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) can be found here.

For further information about the Friends of BBNJ Capacity or the two Policy Briefs and related capacity development efforts, please contact Dr. Biliana Cicin-Sain, President, Global Ocean Forum (bilianacicin-sain@globaloceans.org)

Acknowledgement for informal meeting  photography and photos is owed to Iwao Fujii, Ocean Policy Research Institute of Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan.

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