2011-10-Muthaiga
GDI African Briefing
11 October 2011
Residence of the Ambassador of Switzerland
Muthaiga, Nairobi, Kenya
H.E. Mr Jacques Pitteloud, the Swiss Ambassador to Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Seychelles, hosted an African briefing on the GDI at his residence followed by a dinner. About 35 representatives from governments and civil society participated including official representatives from Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, the European Union, Finland, France, India, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, and the US, and representatives from ACTS, the Indigenous Information Network, the Mpala Research Center, UNEP and WWF.
After a welcome speech from Ambassador Pitteloud, Robert Lamb, the CBD National Focal Point for Switzerland, gave a brief overview of the history and current status of the CBD Strategy for Resource Mobilisation. He noted that at the COP10 last October in Nagoya, the Parties had long negotiations on the topic of innovative financial mechanisms, but in the end were now able to agree on a set of decisions on this topic. The GDI was considered under this agenda item.
Francis Vorhies, Executive Director of Earthmind, then provided an overview of the history of the GDI from COP9 in May 2008 in Bonn through the 3rd Expert Meeting on the GDI which had just been held in Nairobi. He explained that following extensive consultations, the GDI was now focusing on developing one promising modality for resource mobilisation — the establishment of a green development land management certification system to facilitate the direct flow of private sector funding to conservation and development actions on the ground. The focus of the 3rd Expert Meeting was to further articulate the key elements of a CBD-compliant land management certification as well as to further understand what needs to be done to promote the GDI approach as a tool for corporate biodiversity action and to bring GDI-certified projects to the market.
During the dinner, the GDI team was able to sit at the various tables to further discuss the challenges of developing this new approach to securing additional funding for biodiversity. The delegates were also provided with relevant documentation on USB sticks including the GDI working papers, documentation from previous CDB events including WGRI3 and COP10, and a draft outcome statement from the 3rd Expert Meeting. The details of the CBD National Focal Points were included to facilitate the delivery of this information to the right desks in the national governments.
CBD official notification to the Parties on the African Briefing
Previous African briefings including a note distributed by the CBD Secretariat in June 2010 and a meeting with the Africa Group in Geneva in September 2010. Bilateral consultations also took place during WGRI3 in May 2010 and COP10 in October 2010.
After the presentations, the Swiss Ambassador
invited the participants of the GDI African Briefing
to a dinner during which the GDI Team had the
opportunity to discuss the Initiative in detail.
