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.
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)
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.