The third meeting of the Ad Hoc Advisory Technical Committee on the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) and the Multilateral System (MLS) under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR) addressed a series of implementation questions and considered links with access and benefit-sharing (ABS) frameworks to be developed in the framework of the Nagoya Protocol.
23 August 2012: The report of the third meeting of the Ad Hoc Advisory Technical Committee on the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) and the Multilateral System (MLS) under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR), held from 26-28 June 2012, in New Delhi, India, is available online.
Meeting immediately before the second session of the Intergovernmental Committee on the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Committee heard a status report on the implementation and operation of the SMTA and the MLS since the last session of the ITPGR Governing Body in March 2011, and issued an opinion regarding non-food/non-feed uses of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA).
The Committee also considered a document regarding creating legal space for the Treaty and its MLS in the context of access and benefit-sharing (ABS) frameworks, and expressed the view that nothing in the Nagoya Protocol would prevent Treaty Parties that will be also Parties to the Protocol from implementing the Treaty and its MLS. It also encouraged the Treaty Secretariat to continue its collaboration with the CBD Secretariat in pursuing practical and harmonious interfaces between general ABS requirements and the operation of the Treaty and its MLS.
The Committee also considered a series of implementation questions, including on the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project. [Publication: Third Meeting of the Ad Hoc Advisory Technical Committee on the Standard Material Transfer Agreement and the Multilateral System: Report] [Meeting Website]