Entebbe/Bonn, 28 October 2011
- A three-day preparatory negotiation workshop for Africa
took place from 26-28 October 2011 in Entebbe, Uganda. The
workshop, which targeted CMS national focal points as well
as a number from AEWA in the African region, was jointly
organized by the UNEP/CMS and UNEP/AEWA Secretariats, with
support from the Division of Environmental Law and Conventions
(DELC)
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The workshop was also supported by Wetlands International
and BirdLife International and was made possible by a financial
contribution from the Governments of Sweden, Switzerland,
Germany and the United Republic of Tanzania.

The
workshop aimed to enhance participants’ negotiation
skills and techniques to improve their effectiveness at
meetings of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and
particularly in preparation, for the up-coming Conference
of the Parties to CMS (COP10) and Meeting of the Parties
to AEWA (MOP5). The skills gained will equally help improve
their contribution to other international and regional
meetings and processes. In this regard, the workshop programme
examined some of the items to be discussed at CMS
COP10 (20-25 November 2011, Bergen, Norway)
and AEWA
MOP5 (14-18 May 2012, La Rochelle, France),
thereby enabling participants to be well versed with COP10
and MOP5 issues, discuss them and possibly prepare common
positions on subjects of regional interest. Furthermore,
the training provided an opportunity to identify needs
for further capacity building activities in Africa and
possible follow-up measures.

As many as 32 participants from 24 African countries
attended the negotiation workshop, including AEWA representatives
from Benin, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Kenya, Madagascar Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa,
Togo, Tunisia, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.
It was facilitated by Ms. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive
Secretary of CMS and former Senior Legal Advisor of UNEP/DELC,
together with Mr. Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Regional Coordinator
for West Africa from Wetlands International. Mr. Francisco
Rilla Manta and Ms. Sofia Chaichee from the CMS Information
and Capacity Building Unit serviced the workshop along
with Ms. Evelyn Moloko, Coordinator of the African Initiative
at the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat.

“We are already seeing how effectively and actively the
delegates are participating and applying what they are
learning at the workshop. In addition to informing themselves
on key issues they will address at COP10 and MOP5, they
are also practising some new skills toward negotiating
their common positions at these meetings. The AEWA delegates
in particular are enthusiastically discussing issues relating
to their draft Plan of Action for the implementation of
AEWA in Africa, which will be presented to MOP5 for review
and adoption”, as reported by Ms. Evelyn Moloko directly
from the workshop in Entebbe.

The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat conducted a similar workshop
for AEWA delegates from anglophone African countries in
September 2008 prior to the AEWA MOP4 in Antananarivo,
Madagascar. For more information on this 2008 pre-MOP
Negotiation Workshop please click here.

Click here
for the documents of the Preparatory Negotiation Workshop
in Uganda.