16/02/2012

Through the Treaty Website the Secretariat makes available information on material included in the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing by Contracting Parties, the International Agriculture Research Centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), other International Centres and natural and legal persons within the jurisdiction of Contracting Parties.

These notifications help to make the Multilateral System established by the International Treaty more transparent and its material more accessible to the international community. Most of the information published in the Website has been received in the form of notifications. The Bureau of the Third Session of the Governing Body approved a sample “Letter of Notification of Inclusion of Material in the Multilateral System” that can be downloaded in four languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish). The sample letter has been widely used since it was posted and has certainly help to standardize the quality of information submitted.

The information that it is received and published by the Secretariat is also compiled, at aggregated level, for each session of the Governing Body. At the Fourth Session of the Governing Body, the following Contracting Parties had provided such information, including earlier notifications, in different levels of detail: Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (The Nordic Genetic Resource Centre), Estonia, Germany, Jordan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Namibia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Zambia, as well as a collective report by the European Region. Afterwards, the Secretariat has published the notifications from Cyprus and Kenya. Though there was an improvement compared to previous reports, we have to consider that there are 127 Contracting Parties to the Treaty, and that a significant number of Contracting Parties is yet to provide information or notify the Secretariat of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture within their jurisdictions that are in the Multilateral System. During the 2012-2013 Biennium the Secretariat will continue to make available those notifications through the website.