Operation and activities of the Biosafety Clearing-House

The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety,

Taking note of the progress report on the implementation of the multi-year programme of work for the operation of the Biosafety Clearing-House, and relevant information contained in the interim national reports on implementation of the Protocol,

Taking note of the report of the second meeting of the Compliance Committee (UNEP/CBD/BS/COP-MOP/3/2),

Welcoming the participation of Governments and international organizations that have already provided information to the Biosafety Clearing-House,

Recalling the need for capacity-building to enable developing country Parties, in particular the least developed and small island developing states among them, to effectively use the Biosafety Clearing-House, and taking into account the limited capacities of these Parties to provide information to the Biosafety Clearing-House,

Emphasizing that the provision of sufficient relevant information is essential for the effective operation of the Biosafety Clearing-House, and recognizing the important role of the Biosafety Clearing-House in implementing the Protocol,

1. Urges Parties, Governments and other users to participate in the Biosafety Clearing-House by contributing or continuing to contribute information as soon as possible, whether directly through the management centre of the Central Portal, or through the development of nodes that are interlinked and interoperable with the Central Portal, or other options for national participation as appropriate;

2. Requests the Executive Secretary to continue to collaborate with nodes that are interlinked and interoperable with the Central Portal to ensure full accessibility of information through the Biosafety Clearing-House;

3. Recognizing the limited data available in some categories of information in the Biosafety Clearing-House, urges Parties and other Governments to include information pertaining to decisions on the release or import of living modified organisms and risk assessments taken prior to entry into force of the Protocol;

4. Invites those Governments that have identified constraints on making information available in a timely manner and/or implemented strategies to overcome these difficulties to share these experiences with the Secretariat for circulation to the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol, no later than six months prior to that meeting;

5. Recalls the requirement under Annex II of the Protocol to provide any unique identification of living modified organisms intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing under Article 11 and requests Governments to also provide information relating to unique identification when registering decisions under the Advance Informed Agreement procedure, where available;

6. Encourages Parties, Governments and other users to continue to use the Management Centre to provide information, and/or to develop national, regional, sub-regional and institutional nodes that are interlinked and interoperable with the Central Portal, as appropriate;

7. Reminds Parties that information must be directly registered with the Central Portal even where it is available on a national website, in order to comply with the information-sharing obligations;

8. Invites Parties, other Governments and donor organizations including the Global Environment Facility (GEF), when formulating projects and programmes for capacity building in biosafety, to take into account the need for Parties to be able to provide summary information in the common formats for reporting information (particularly keywords for categorizing records) in an official language of the United Nations to enable registration of such information with the Central Portal;

9. Invites Parties, Governments and international organizations to continue to make relevant biosafety information available through the Biosafety Information Resource Centre;

10. Welcomes ongoing initiatives in capacity-building, such as the Biosafety Clearing-House training workshop supported by the Secretariat in collaboration with the UNEP-GEF Biosafety Unit and requests the Executive Secretary to continue to support such capacity-building activities in partnership with organizations such as UNEP-GEF;

11. Recalls the invitation previously extended to donor Governments and organizations to assist developing country Parties, in particular the least developed and small island developing States among them, and countries with economies in transition as well as countries that are centres of origin and centres of genetic diversity, and especially States with limited or no Internet access, to access and use the Biosafety Clearing-House, particularly in the areas of improved capacity for data collection and data management at the national level, strengthening of core human resources at the national level, and the establishment of appropriate infrastructure to share information at national, regional and international levels;

12. Requests the Executive Secretary, in order to ensure the rights of Parties arising from in particular Article 11 of the Protocol, to make easily available decisions and other information on living modified organisms for food, or feed, or for processing, risk assessments on living modified organisms, and decisions taken under the Advance Informed Agreement procedure;

13. Requests the Executive Secretary to undertake translation of the Central Portal interface into the six official languages of the United Nations, and calls upon Parties, Governments and other donors to provide the required financial resources;

14. Requests the Executive Secretary, with a view to ensuring value for money, to undertake an external security audit of the Central Portal and its infrastructure to ensure full security of this information, and to minimize any chance of any loss of information, and calls upon Parties, Governments and other donors to provide the required financial resources ;

15. Requests the Executive Secretary to continue to develop non-Internet based mechanisms for countries to access information in the Biosafety Clearing-House, such as circulating information registered with the Central Portal on CD-ROMs on a quarterly basis to those Governments that request such facilities;

16. Requests the Executive Secretary to undertake another survey of Biosafety Clearing-House users to compare improvements against existing baseline data, and to submit this information for consideration by the Parties at their fourth meeting as part of the review of the implementation of the Protocol envisaged in the medium-term programme of work.