Workshop review

Falling at a crucial time in the ongoing negotiation of an international regime on access and benefit sharing, the second ABS capacity development workshop for Africa convened in Nairobi, Kenya. Exactly a year after the first meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, it provided 76 participants from 18 countries, representing a variety of stakeholders, with a chance to further develop their thinking on ABS at the local, national, regional and international levels. Specifically, it represented a vantage point from which to take stock of the progress since Cape Town and to look ahead; it provided a forum for representatives from across Africa to share their experiences and perspectives on ABS; and it allowed for the development of messages from the participants to the African negotiators of the international regime.  

One of the significant outputs of the Cape Town workshop was a vision, crafted by a number of disparate stakeholder groups which paints a picture of an ideal ABS scenario. That vision has been further developed at intervening regional workshops. Participants reviewed the vision and had a chance to re-assess its elements with a view to building on the roadmap towards its operationalization.  Towards this aim, participants worked in groups representing the African Union, the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community to assess the compatibility and replicability of the Central Africa Forests Commission’s strategic plan on ABS for their regions.  This approach reflects the workshop’s aim of engendering a meeting between theory and policy.

The workshop moved from the policy level to the ground level via a number of presentations of the latest bioprospecting cases in Africa including: Marula oil from Namibia, Baringo aloe from Kenya, Prunus africana in Uganda and Thaumatin from Côte d’Ivoire, malarial remedies from Uganda, and the Kenyan product Naturub. Participants also heard presentations linking ABS to the management and funding of protected areas.  This gave participants an opportunity to reflect upon the specific considerations of widely differing ABS cases. A visit to the Kenyan Wildlife Service headquarters, combined with a close look at a bioprospecting Memorandum of Understanding between KWS and  Novozymes, a Danish company, deepened the exercise, making a case for attention to be given to the “market-approach”.  

The workshop shifted its focus to the international level with the help of the Co-chairs of the ABS working group, Messrs Fernando Casas and Timothy Hodges and a number of African Region negotiators.  While a representative from the CBD presented on the latest developments of the negotiations, the Co-chairs provided input on the upcoming meeting in Geneva in January (WGABS-6) as well as their comments on the process and on the way forwards. African negotiators also provided their input, specifically dealing with the region’s strategies and positions. The main output of the meeting were a set of recommendations to be forwarded to the negotiators providing the participants’ input under the six main agenda items for WGABS-6, namely: benefit sharing; access; compliance (certificate); TK; capacity building; and scope, nature and objectives.

The meeting took place at icipe - African Insect Science for Food and Health who provided accommodation and conference facilities, and presented an opportunity for participants to observe their groundbreaking work on combating invasive species.