Capacity Building
Establishing National Clearing-House Mechanisms
Decision X/15 encourages Parties to continue to take the necessary steps to establish, strengthen, and ensure the sustainability of, national clearing-house mechanisms. A number of capacity-building efforts are being made to achieve this goal by Parties and through partnerships.
Capacity Building Workshops
Workshops organized by the CBD Secretariat
The following capacity-building workshops have been held to support the development of national clearing-house mechanisms:
- The Regional Workshop for Central and Eastern Europe and Western Asia on the Clearing-House Mechanism was held on 4-8 April 2016 in Belgrade, Serbia, thanks to the support of the Governments of Serbia and Japan. This workshop was attended by 16 participants representing 11 countries. The main goal of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of these countries to develop effective and sustainable national clearing-house mechanisms.
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- The Regional Workshop for African Countries on the Clearing-House Mechanism was held on 5-9 May 2014 in Buea, Cameroon, thanks to the support of the Governments of Cameroon, Belgium and Japan. This workshop was attended by 22 participants representing 22 African countries. The main goal of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of these countries to develop effective and sustainable national clearing-house mechanisms. The workshop was held in parallel with the Coordination Meeting of the Belgian Partnership for the Clearing-House Mechanism. Joint sessions were organized for topics of interest to both workshops.
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- The Regional Workshop for the Caribbean Countries on the Clearing-House Mechanism was held on 16-20 September 2013 in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, thanks to the support from the Governments of Saint Lucia and Japan. This workshop was attended by 17 participants representing 11 countries in the Caribbean region. The main goal of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of these countries to develop effective and sustainable national clearing-house mechanisms. The workshop was held in parallel with the Regional Workshop for the Caribbean Countries on the Preparation of the Fifth National Report. Joint sessions were organized for topics of interest to both workshops.
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- The Regional Workshop for Latin America on the Clearing-House Mechanism was held on 6-10 May 2013 in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, thanks to the support from the Governments of Colombia and Japan. This workshop was attended by representatives of 18 Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The main goal of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of these countries to develop effective and sustainable national clearing-house mechanisms. The workshop was held in parallel with the Regional Workshop for Latin America on Updating National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). Joint sessions were organized to strengthen the relationship between NBSAPs and the CHM.
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Workshops organized by Partners
Several major CHM partners also organize capacity building workshops at regional or sub-regional levels. The following partners can be contacted for more details:
The
Regional African Workshop of the Belgian Partnership for the Clearing-House Mechanism was held on 11-14 March 2013 in Marrakech, Morocco, thanks to the support from the Governments of Morocco, Belgium and Japan. The workshop was attended by 18 participants including CHM representatives of 8 African countries and one regional institution (COMIFAC). The workshop focused on the future Belgian partnership programme 2014-2019 with developing countries on the implementation of the Strategy Plan of the Convention 2011-2020.
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European Portal Toolkit
The European Portal Toolkit is a key tool developed and maintained by the European CHM in order to facilitate the establishment of a National CHM website. It provides a complete set of modern features to create a web portal and manage its content. It is the most widely used tool across Europe and Africa. This toolkit is freely available on the European CHM website at
http://biodiversity-chm.eea.europa.eu/ptk.
CHM Toolkit
A CHM toolkit was created several years ago to assist Parties in the development of their national clearing-house mechanisms (CHMs), with the following objectives:
- Facilitate the establishment of national CHMs, and promote their participation in activities related to technical and scientific cooperation;
- Synergize partnerships to assist with the technical development of national CHMs;
- Assist in the design and establishment of national CHM websites;
- Promote the exchange of biodiversity-related data, information and knowledge.
The toolkit’s 6 modules inform and educate users on best practices for establishing the key elements of a national CHM:
- Introducing tools in support of participation in the thematic areas and cross-cutting areas of the Convention;
- Assisting in the development of online communication to synergize new collaborative initiatives and promote exchange of ideas and knowledge;
- Assisting in the establishment of national CHMs by discussing potential activities, functions and responsibilities;
- Providing information on creating and structuring national CHM websites, with a focus on establishing partnerships with existing national CHMs;
- Offering information on existing technical toolkits, to facilitate the technical implementation of national CHM websites;
- Providing background information on formats, protocols and standards, particularly metadata and controlled vocabularies, to foster the creation of a global biodiversity information network;
- Providing links to expertise, partners, literature and resources.
This toolkit remains available
here.
