7 May 2011: Held from 2-7 May 2011, in Beirut, Lebanon, the regional workshop for North Africa and the Middle East on National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aimed to strengthen national capacities for the development, implementation, reviewing, updating and communication of NBSAPs.

The capacity-building workshop was organized by the CBD Secretariat, with the financial support of the Government of Japan.

Other specific objectives of the workshop included: facilitating national implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020; raising awareness to stimulate early actions to implement the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing (ABS) and the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety; supporting countries in making use of the findings of the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study; and facilitating active learning opportunities and peer-to-peer exchanges for national focal points and persons in charge of implementing and revising NBSAPs.

The workshop also aimed to address some of the capacity-development needs identified by the decisions of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE) Arab Team on Biodiversity. [CBD Communiqué] [Meeting Documents]