The African ABS Legal Experts’ Network

The Bio-Bridge Initiative (BBI) Morocco project builds upon Morocco’s GEF-UNDP project "APA Nagoya” for Morocco’s national implementation of the Nagoya Protocol, piloted by the Moroccan Department of Environment.

Following Morocco’s proposition to expend the project to other countries in the African region, UNDP partnered with the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) to develop a training programme on legal aspects of ABS, in a training-of-trainers (ToT) format, that would strongly complement the upcoming capacity development activities under the CDB-IDLO programme by ensuring the workshops and materials planned are led by a highly qualified ABS legal expert with the knowledge, skills and networks needed to provide targeted solutions. Initially, the programme will target primarily French-speaking African countries would be also involved in order to expand the pool of ABS legal expertise available to support national and regional capacity building programs. The programme content will be developed by IDLO and the CBD Secretariat, with support from UNDP as well as the newly created African network of ABS legal experts involving 10 French- speaking African countries, through the Bio-Bridge Initiative.

The project launched through the organization, on May 10-11 2018, of the first meeting of the African ABS Legal Experts Network, hosted by Morocco in Rabat, that saw the participation of Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Morocco, the Republic of Congo and Niger. Together, their experts set the objectives and structure of the newly created network and identified priority areas of the new capacity-development project: “the ABS Legal Leadership Programme”.