International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

New decision-making tool for national implementation of the Multilateral System available online

05/09/2018

A new tool to assist national-level policy actors to identify appropriate measures to implement the Multilateral System within their country has been published online. The tool has been designed under the Joint Capacity Building Programme with Bioversity International and is based on national experiences accumulated during the life of the Programme with the development of domestic policies and mechanisms.

The decision-making tool is divided into eleven sections corresponding to issues that national-level policy actors need to address:

  1. Who is responsible for promoting and coordinating national implementation?
  2. What is facilitated access to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) under the Multilateral System and who has the right to facilitated access?
  3. Who may authorize access to PGRFA under the Multilateral System?
  4. What processes and criteria should be followed to consider requests for PGRFA included in the Multilateral System?
  5. How to deal with requests for purposes that are (or may be) beyond the scope of the Multilateral System?
  6. What PGRFA are automatically included in the Multilateral System?
  7. How to encourage voluntary inclusions by natural and legal persons?
  8. How to ensure legal space for the implementation of the Multilateral System?
  9. How to address benefit sharing?
  10. How to deal with reporting obligations regarding transfers and sales?
  11. Who monitors the use of PGRFA under the Multilateral System and enforces the Multilateral System’s terms and conditions?

The Joint Capacity Building Programme has collaborated with various national and international organizations and independent experts to develop the tool. They include the ABS Capacity Building Initiative, and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The development of the tool was also supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands. The tool is online at https://www.bioversityinternational.org/e-library/publications/detail/decision-making-tool-for-national-implementation-of-the-plant-treatys-multilateral-system-of-access/

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