Welcoming the financial support of the Global Environment Facility for eligible Parties to prepare and submit their national reports and recognizing the contribution of that support to the high rate of submission of these reports;
Noting that 14 Parties have not yet submitted their second national reports and that five of those Parties have never fulfilled their reporting obligations under Article 33 of the Protocol,
Recognizing that there are some discrepancies between the information contained in the second national reports and the information made available by Parties through the Biosafety Clearing-House,
1.Welcomes the high rate of submissions of second national reports by Parties and takes note of the analysis of responses prepared by the Executive Secretary;
2.Reminds Parties of their obligation to submit national reports, in accordance with Article 33 of the Protocol;
3.Urges the 14 Parties that have not yet submitted their national reports to do so at the earliest opportunity by fully completing the report form for the second national report, as contained in the annex to
decision BS-V/14;
4.Also
urges those Parties that have not yet responded fully to all mandatory questions in the second national report to cooperate with the Secretariat in order to complete their second national reports as soon as possible;
5.Reminds Parties of paragraph 2 of
decision BS-V/14, which requests Parties submitting their national report for the first time to use the reporting format for the second national report, and
decides that all Parties should complete this form before using any simplified reporting format that may be adopted in the future;
6.Further reminds Parties of their obligation to make available to the Biosafety Clearing House the information required under paragraph 3 of Article 20 of the Protocol;
7.Encourages Parties to facilitate the preparation and submission of their national reports by exploring and utilizing, as appropriate: (i) the technical and other resources available in existing bilateral, subregional and regional arrangements; and (ii) the roster of biosafety experts;
8.Requests the Executive Secretary to assess, on the basis of the second national reports, the discrepancies and/or gaps in information made available by Parties through the Biosafety Clearing-House, and to assist Parties to submit, through the Biosafety Clearing-House and without further delay, the updated information contained in their reports;
9.Also requests the Executive Secretary to update the reporting format, taking into account the experience gained from analysing the second national reports, the recommendations of the Compliance Committee and the feedback received from Parties; and
10.Further requests the Executive Secretary to submit the revised format, adjusted in accordance with paragraph 8 of decision BS V/14, to the seventh meeting of the Parties to the Protocol for its consideration.
