Workshop Review
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Certificate_of_Origin_African_Recommendations.doc Summary Report about the workshop including the proposed elements for an African position on the certificate of origin/source/legal provenance. |
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40 stakeholders from all regions of Sub-Saharan Africa participated at this workshop which was hosted by the renowed Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation. Experts from Ethiopia, Madagascar and Mozambique who had attended the global Lima meeting on the "Certificate of Origin" in January reported back to the workshop their specific viewpoints. The other participants included ABS National Focal Points and representatives of Competent National Authorities for ABS, negotiators in the last meeting of the ABS Working Group, staff of national research and development institutions, NGOs from the local, national and regional level, staff of international institutions, as well as relevant international private sector representatives including farmers and breeders.
On the first day, participants were warmly welcomed by the GTZ workshop convenors and were addressed by the Ethiopian State Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and a representative of the CBD Secretariat. Equipped with a couple of research questions on gene flow, the participants were given a guided tour through the gene bank of the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and an presentation by the Institute’s Director General on the Ethiopian ABS legislation. In the afternoon, participants heard from the representative of the Secretariat of the CBD and the African experts who attended the Lima meeting and had a lively discussion on the applicability of the Lima recommendations on the African continent.
The second day was dedicated to the “reality check”. It centred on three bioprospecting cases: Hoodia gordonii from Southern Africa, Prunus africana from Cameroon, and alkaliphilic bacteria from Kenya. Participants were split into three moderated groups discussing how a Certificate in this particular case might have facilitated the process and might have contributed to ensure benefit-sharing. In the afternoon, participants made a field visit to a teff cereal farm about 70 km out of Addis Ababa, getting in direct touch with farmers exchanging production, storing and breeding methods. A highlight in the field was the presentation of a couple of teff products from the Netherlands (such as muesli bars, beer, bread and noodles) to the Ethiopian farmers including a discussion of their viewpoints on these goods.
Later the group watched a film about the Dutch-Ethiopian Teff ABS Agreement and engaged with a controversial panel discussion on the issues that included all relevant stakeholders of this case: representatives from the Farmers Association, Institute of Biodiversity Conservation, Health and Performance Food International (HPFI) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The final day began with working groups reporting back about their discussion’s results of the three bioprospecting cases. Specifically, the groups provided their specific input on four elements of the certificate:
- Rational / Need / Objectives: what would be the value added of a certificate?
- Name: should it be a certificate of origin, source, legal provenance or compliance?
- Characteristics and features: should it be voluntary o mandatory, what should it include, and who should regulate it?
- Implementation challenges: how should benefits, costs and practicability issues be dealt with?
The afternoon session focussed on feeding the working groups’ output into a set of recommendations for a common African position. A task force composed of participants from all stakeholder groups drew up a draft set of recommendations which was further worked on in the entire plenary. The final recommendations were elaborated based on high quality, comprehensive and sometimes also conflictive discussions. They are reflecting now the agreed view of all participants. Only in one case - the name of the certificate – no common definition was agreed: some preferred to name it certificate of “origin and/or source” while others called for the more comprehensive “origin and source.”
The final evaluation revealed that the participants were very satisfied with all workshop elements: the results, the moderation, the methodology and the learning experiences they gained.
