The core team of African negotiators met in Windhoek, Namibia from 12-14 October 2009 to consider the draft operational text and the rationale of the African position, in preparation for the Working Group meeting on Article 8j being held in Montreal, Canada in November 2009

The work of the core team was based on a re-draft of the African operational text that was submitted to the secretariat of the Convention in December 2008. The team of independent experts who prepared the text were again reconstituted to prepare the new document, taking into account all the processes which took place during the intersessional work, such as the work of the technical expert group that met in India, and the outcomes of the pan-African ILC meeting in Nairobi.