Need to Address Issues Regarding Benefit Sharing in ITPGRFA

The overall implementation of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture's (ITPGRFA) Multilateral System for Access and Benefit-Sharing (MLS) has been slow and requires measures to be taken to achieve its objectives. This was observed by Claudio Chiarolla of the Institut du developpmente durable et des relations internationales, and Stefan Jungcurt of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Germany, in a background study paper released by the Berne Declaration and Uiviklingsfondet.

The paper recommends several measures to address concerns. These include:

• Require Parties to submit reports to the Compliance Committee explaining why they have not yet notified their collections and provided adequate documentation.
• Expand opportunities for developing country parties to build technical and legal capacity to identify, inventory, and notify their collections.
• Explore measures to incentivize non-parties to ratify.

Download a copy of the report at http://www.evb.ch/cm_data/ITPGR_ABS_Study_1.pdf.