The decision-making tool aims to assist national policy makers and other stakeholders in identifying appropriate measures to implement the ITPGRFA’s Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing in their countries.
The tool builds on eight years of experience in working with partners in many countries to develop national policies under the framework of the Capacity-building Programme for Developing Countries on Implementation of the Treaty and its Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing, coordinated by the ITPGRFA Secretariat and jointly implemented by FAO and Bioversity International.
6 August 2018: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) Secretariat and Bioversity International have published a decision-making tool for national implementation of the ITPGRFA Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing. The Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing creates a virtual pool of plant genetic resources available at no cost for research, breeding and training activities in all countries that are parties to the Treaty.
The decision-making tool aims to assist national policy makers and other stakeholders in identifying appropriate measures to implement the ITPGRFA’s Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing in their countries. The tool builds on eight years of experience in working with partners in many countries to develop national policies under the framework of the Capacity-building Programme for Developing Countries on Implementation of the Treaty and its Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing, coordinated by the ITPGRFA Secretariat and jointly implemented by FAO and Bioversity International.
The decision-making tool provides draft “baseline” legal provisions for incorporation into new laws and administrative guides.
The decision-making tool is divided into eleven sections on issues that national-level policy actors need to address, with each section presented in the question-and-answer format. At the end of every section, the publication provides draft “baseline” legal provisions. The provisions are recommended to be adapted and incorporated into new laws and administrative guides, if and when they are considered useful.
Among other things, each section of the decision-making tool considers: if there are means of simultaneously implementing various elements of the ITPGRFA, for example conservation (Article 5), sustainable use (Article 6), farmers’ rights (Article 9) or the global information system (Article 17); if there are important issues to consider related to the mutually supportive implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); and whether it is useful to develop new policies or laws to implement the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing. [Publication: Decision-making Tool for National Implementation of the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing] [Bioversity International Press Release]