Absalom Shigwedha

WINDHOEK – Egypt will host the 14th Conference of the Parties (CoP 14) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in November this year.

The conference will be held from the 17 to 29 November at the Sharm El-Sheik International Congress Centre under the theme “Investing in biodiversity for people and planet’’, according the CBD’s Montreal-based secretariat.
The CBD’s CoP 14 will also serve as the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CP-MOP - 9), the third meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation (NP-MOP-3).

Namibia is an active Party to the CBD and its protocols. The CBD Conference of the Parties is the governing body of the convention and advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at periodic meeting.
The CBD secretariat said 190 countries will attend the Conventions 14th Conference of the Parties to step up efforts to halt biodiversity loss and protect ecosystems that support food, water security and the health of billions of people around the globe.

The high-level segment of the CBD CoP 14 will be held from the 14th – 15th  November while the government of Egypt will also host the African biodiversity meeting at the venue on the 13th November. When she visited Namibia last month, the executive secretary of the CBD Dr   Cristiana Pasca Palmer, has hailed Namibia as having made great strides and remarkable commitments to the conservation of biodiversity.

She said through the mobilisation and success of your first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), the development of multi-sectoral public policies, integration of nature protection in the national constitution and subsequent work through your second NBSAP (2013 – 2022), Namibia has “championed remarkable commitments and results to safeguard biodiversity, profiling it as an asset and necessity for all.

The CBD has three objectives namely: the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable us of its components and the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising for the commercial utilisation of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge. 
It is one of the three Conventions which emanated from the 1993 Rio Earth Summit. The other two are the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Caps
Dr Cristiana Pasca Palmer