African Preparatory Negotiation Workshop Empowers CMS and AEWA Negotiators

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.