Montreal, 7 February 2013 – In a working visit
to United Nations headquarters in New York from 14 to 16 January 2013,
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Executive Secretary Braulio Ferreira
de Souza Dias briefed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the major outcomes of
the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 11), underlining the
importance of these decisions for the sustainable development agenda.
During his meeting with the Secretary-General, Mr. Dias
solicited his support for the mainstreaming of biodiversity in the sustainable
development agenda of the UN, through system-wide implementation of the Strategic
Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Targets. They further discussed
the status of ratifications of the Nagoya Protocol, which the Secretary-General
heralded as a “historic breakthrough” and a “major success for the
international community” on its adoption in 2010. Also discussed was the support
that the UN could provide in facilitating the ratifications necessary for the
entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol, in order to allow the first meeting of
the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the
Nagoya Protocol to be convened concurrently with the next COP.
Preparations for COP 12, scheduled to be held in the Republic
of Korea 2014, were also touched upon. Mr. Dias also met with a range of senior
UN officials. These included HE Mr. Gyan Chandra Acharya, UN
Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Least Developed Countries,
Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States, to discuss
the relevance of the Strategic Plan for the preparations and outcomes of the
Third International Conference for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and
the comprehensive Ten-Year Review Conference of the Almaty Programme of Action:
Addressing the Special Needs of Landlocked Developing Countries within a New
Global Framework for Transit Transport Cooperation for Landlocked and Transit
Developing Countries.
Meetings were also held with the Secretary-General’s Special
Advisor on Africa, HE Maged Abdelaziz; Ms. Amina Mohammed, Secretary-General’s
Special Advisor on the post-2015 development planning; and, Ms. Shamshad
Akhtar, the Secretary-General’s Senior Advisor on Economic Development and Finance
and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at the Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Mr. Dias briefed them on major developments
in the Convention’s processes, especially with regards to the Strategic Plan,
and solicited their support for mainstreaming biodiversity in the UN processes
to evolve the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development
agendas.
Enhanced cooperation between the CBD and the UN Funds and
Programs, with a view to mainstreaming biodiversity, was discussed in a meeting
with Rebeca Grynspan, Associate Administrator, United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). Collaboration to mainstream gender in biodiversity, based on
the Convention’s Gender Action Plan, was discussed with UN Women Executive
Director, Michelle Bachelet.
Mr. Dias also met with officials in the DESA to discuss
preparations for the special briefing event, mandated by the UN General
Assembly (UNGA), to be organised in the second committee, during the 68th
session of the UNGA; and, officials in the Department of Ocean Affairs and Law
of the Seas, to brief them on relevant COP 11 outcomes and possibilities for
cooperation.
In his meeting with the Deputy Representative of Kazakhstan,
HE Akan Rakhmetullin (representative of the Chairman of the 20th session of the
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)), Mr. Dias discussed biodiversity
and biotechnology, issues which remain unaddressed in the CSD’s work program, and
the need to ensure that biodiversity is given due consideration.
As outreach to, and interactions with, member States and
interest groups was a major focus of his visit, Mr. Dias met with the Chairman
of the G-77 and Permanent Representative of Fiji, HE Peter Thomson. At a lunch
meeting organised by the Embassy of Brazil, he also met with HE Maria Luiza
Ribeiro Viotti, the Permanent Representative of Brazil, the Permanent
Representative of India (and a representative of the COP Presidency) HE Hardeep
Puri, as well as the Deputy Head of the EU delegation to the UN, HE Ioannis
Vrailas.
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