CSOs, Officials Validate ABS Communication Tools

Civil society organizations (CSOs), government officials, the Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) committee, and the UNDP at a workshop last December, 2015, validated communication tools to implement the ABS Echinops Project.

The UNDP GEF Small Grants Project sponsored the two-day workshop aimed at creating publicity tools on ABS, which held at the Hotel Saint Andre in Mbalmayo, Centre Region.

By Kenmene Lea

The following tools were subject to review and validation: brochures, roll-ups on Prior Informed Consent (PIC), Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) and ABS Echinops project.

Following the ABS process of the Nagoya Protocol, a pre-PIC (Prior Informed Consent) was signed in 2012 between the local community of Magha-Bamumbu, ERuDeF and V. Mane Fils S.A., the user company.

Dialogue and negotiation of the first ABS agreement between the Government of Cameroon and the user company was concretized by the signing of the Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) that regulates the commercialization phase of the project.

Progress made on the implementation of the pilot ABS project has contributed to the elaboration of the ABS legal framework in Cameroon to the extent where a decree on ABS has been enacted, pending signature.

Recently the Government of Cameroon appointed ERuDeF to lead the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategic Plan (NBSAP2).

This document focuses on the management of biodiversity and ecosystems in Cameroon.

Two months after this nomination, ERuDeF decided to commence this activity by continuing with the work it started in 2012 with ABS Echinops pilot project in Magha-Bamumbu in Lebialem Division, aimed at valorizing the Echinops plant.