Objectives

The objectives of the African Regional Preparatory Meeting were two fold:

1. To provide a comprehensive report to the African negotiators at COP 9 of the outcomes of the different regional and sub regional workshops and the positions developed therefrom. These outcomes would need to be borne in mind by the African negotiators when they negotiate on various issues in the context of the negotiations at COP 9. The Preparatory Meeting also sought to inform the African negotiators of the main issues for negotiation at COP 9 especially in the context of Access and Benefit Sharing 9 (ABS) and the history of the ABS negotiations to date. Finally the Preparatory Meeting provided space for presentations by resource persons on a range of issues including the latest updates on GEF, an aid for African negotiators in French at COP 9 and a dialogue paper between the African and EU negotiators on the contentious issues in negotiations on the International Regime on ABS.
2. The Preparatory Meeting set aside a day for a co-ordination meeting for African negotiators to develop common African positions on a variety of issues that they would need to negotiate on over the next two weeks at COP 9.</li</ol>