Back to meeting

Knowledge management under the Convention and its Protocols

This is a machine-readable version, original documents can be found in the History tab.

Table of Contents

  1. Preamble
  2. Paragraph 1.
  3. Paragraph 2.
  4. Paragraph 3.

Knowledge management under the Convention and its Protocols

The Conference of the Parties,Recalling decisions XIII/23, XIII/31, XII/2 B, XI/24 and X/15,Noting the progress made with the implementation of the web strategy for the Convention and its Protocols and the development of national clearing-house mechanisms, including the roll-out of the Bioland tool by the Executive Secretary to assist Parties in the establishment or improvement of their national clearing‑house mechanisms,11See CBD/COP/14/INF/4 and CBD/SBI/2/9.Recognizing the need to collect, organize and share biodiversity knowledge and experience, including traditional knowledge, to facilitate and support enhanced implementation of the Convention and its Protocols,Recognizing the need for open access data and open source tools which are a requirement for any effective knowledge management, especially in developing countries,Emphasizing the need to strengthen coherence and integration between the clearing-house mechanism of the Convention, the Biosafety Clearing-House and the Access and Benefit-sharing Clearing-House,
1.Endorses the joint modalities of operation for the clearing-house mechanism of the Convention, the Biosafety Clearing-House and the Access and Benefit-sharing Clearing-House prepared by the Executive Secretary with input from the informal advisory committees, as contained in annex I to the present decision;
2.Invites Parties and other Governments that do not have national clearing-house mechanisms and those wishing to redesign existing ones to use the Bioland tool developed by the Executive Secretary;
3.Invites Parties, other Governments and relevant organizations, as appropriate, to continue providing the necessary financial, technical and human resources to support the further development of national clearing-house mechanisms, or migration of existing national clearing-house mechanism websites to the Bioland tool;
4.Requests the Executive Secretary, subject to the availability of resources:
(a)To continue to implement the work programme for the clearing-house mechanism in support of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-20202 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development3 with the guidance of the Informal Advisory Committee to the Clearing-House Mechanism;2Decision X/2, annex.3See General Assembly resolution 70/1 of 25 September 2015.
(b)To continue to support the efforts of Parties to establish, sustain, and further develop their national clearing-house mechanisms, including through:
(i)Ongoing development and promotion of the Bioland tool;
(ii)Facilitating and organizing training, in collaboration with Parties and relevant organizations, to assist Parties in developing their national clearing-house mechanisms;
(c)To update and further implement the web strategy for the Convention and its Protocols with priority actions to be taken before 2020 based on decisions emanating from the fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, the third meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing and the ninth meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
(d)To contribute to the development and testing of the Data and Reporting Tool, in collaboration with the InforMEA Initiative, with a view to learning from Parties’ experiences in delivering their sixth national reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and facilitating its use in reporting processes across the biodiversity-related conventions, as appropriate;
(e)To identify, publicize and promote communities of practice, knowledge networks and collaborative dialogue platforms relevant to the implementation of the Convention and its Protocols;
(f)To develop, in consultation with the informal advisory committees to the clearing-house mechanism, the Biosafety Clearing-House and the Access and Benefit Sharing Clearing-House, a knowledge management component as a part of the preparatory process for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to, inter alia, guide future developments of the clearing-house mechanism, the Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House and the Biosafety Clearing-House;
(g)To use the experience gained from relevant knowledge management initiatives, such as InforMEA, the Data and Reporting Tool, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas and the Knowledge Hub of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, to inform the elaboration of the knowledge management component referred to above;
(h)To systematically capture the lessons learned and best practices from the information provided by Parties, other Governments, international and other organizations, and indigenous peoples and local communities using a standardized format as a part of the knowledge management component referred to above;
(i)To submit a progress report on the above activities, including progress on the use of the Bioland tool and its effectiveness, to the Subsidiary Body on Implementation for consideration at its third meeting.

Annex

Joint modalities of operation for the central clearing-house mechanism, the Biosafety Clearing-House and the Access and Benefit‑sharing Clearing-House

A. Development and administration by the Secretariat

1.The Secretariat shall continue to develop and administer the central clearing-house mechanism, the Biosafety Clearing-House, and the Access and Benefit-sharing Clearing-House (hereinafter “clearing-houses”) in accordance with the relevant mandates and decisions under the Convention and its Protocols, ensuring to the extent possible, that common approaches are taken in the development and administration of the clearing-houses, while preserving the specific functionalities unique to each clearing-house, and on the basis of the guiding principles and core specifications described herein.
2.The clearing-houses shall be developed and administered in a manner consistent with the following characteristics:
(a)Guided by the principles of inclusiveness, transparency, open access, and open to all Governments, indigenous peoples and local communities and relevant stakeholders;
(b)Developed on the basis of clear and identified demand, experience gained, and available resources, avoiding duplication of systems;
(c)Ensuring that the user experience is predictable and coherent across the clearing-houses;
(d)Ensuring that the visual design and functionality is intuitive, user-friendly and consistent across the clearing-houses;
(e)Ensuring, to the extent possible, the timely provision of on-demand technical assistance for using the clearing-houses.
3.The clearing-houses shall meet the following core specifications:
(a)Access and navigation through a publicly available web portal operational in the six official languages of the United Nations;
(b)A secure central database acting as the repository of available information;
(c)A secure submission mechanism, through a single sign-on, allowing users to publish information in a structured manner through common formats and metadata and a controlled vocabulary, while distinguishing between mandatory and optional information;
(d)A publicly available search mechanism allowing the search and retrieval of the content through metadata and controlled vocabularies across all clearing-houses;
(e)Unique identifiers to search and retrieve information, where applicable;
(f)A secure update mechanism allowing users with the appropriate role to amend or update information;
(g)A design that clearly identifies who has made the information available;
(h)An interoperability mechanism to facilitate the exchange of information with external databases and systems, as appropriate;
(i)An offline mechanism for registering information and facilitating offline access to available information, upon request and, in particular, for users with limited Internet access.

B. Role of users with respect to the sharing of information

4.When sharing information through any of the clearing-houses, users shall:
(a)Follow the procedures for publication established for each clearing-house or type of information;
(b)Take responsibility to ensure that the information made available is accurate, complete, relevant and up-to-date;
(c)Not include confidential data, since all information published in the clearing-houses is publicly available;
(d)Not infringe on any intellectual property rights associated with the information published;
(e)Provide metadata which describes the primary data (such as the elements describing the content of a legislative measure chosen from a controlled vocabulary) in an official language of the United Nations, while recognizing that the primary data (for example, a legislative measure), may be submitted in the original language;
(f)Endeavour to provide a courtesy translation into one of the official languages of the United Nations of the primary data submitted.