The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) aims to strengthen the capacity of countries to participate in the Biosafety Clearing House, an initiative that seeks to improve countries’ compliance with the Cartagena Protocol, while ensuring safer handling and use of living modified organisms, thus enhancing the conservation of biodiversity globally.
UNEP held a training of trainers’ workshop for Caribbean environmental officers, in September 2019, in Barbados, to enhance the capacity of the officers to sustain the continuity of biosafety efforts in the region. The forum promoted information exchange and networking between the region’s biosafety leaders on Biosafety Clearing House procedures, an exercise that would further enable them to replicate capacity-building activities at national levels.
Delegates from several countries in the region attended the meeting including Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and agricultural organizations such as the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the University of West Indies.
A virtual learning environment was developed at the forum, to improve on facilitation of exchange of Biosafety Clearing House documents, regional activities and collaboration efforts. The course will further improve the knowledge and understanding of the Biosafety Clearing House implementers on matters relating to successful design and execution of national trainings.
UNEP will continue to train delegates from participating countries and regional organizations to enable them to replicate Biosafety Clearing House training and education activities at the national and regional levels. Activities include general aspects of the Cartagena Protocol and its implications on national public and private stakeholders as well as registering national information in the Biosafety Clearing House to comply with national obligations.
For more information, please contact Rami-Abdel.Malik[a]un.org.
