NORGLOBAL-Norge - Global partner

Access to crop genetic resources and the sharing of benefits from utilization are central to their maintainance, as well as food security and climate change adaptation. The national implementation of, and interaction between, relevant international agreements is central in this context. To gather information about and views on national implementation efforts related to access and benefit sharing under the CBD and the Plant Treaty interviews and group discussions have been conducted with stakeholders such as farmers, industry representatives and government officials. In addition,various meetings have been organized by the project: on Access and Benefit Sharing in Relation to Crop Genetic Resources, 5 August 2013; on Nepal's Preparation for the Fifth Session of the Governing Body of the Plant Treaty, 29-30 August 2013; on Ensuring seed security in Nepal, 13 February 2014; on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing: Local Issues and Concerns, 10-11 September 2014; and on Building a Coherent System of Resource Management and Access and Benefit Sharing in Nepal, 22 September 2014;on Biodiversity and Intellectual Property: Policy Options of implementation of ABS Regime in India, 29-30 January 2015; on Conservation, Use and Exchange of Crop Genetic Resources: Promoting Regional Cooperation for a Food-Secure, Climate-Resilient South Asia, 26-27 August 2015. Participants have included representatives from local and central government institutions, NGOs, the private sector, community seed banks, academics, farmers, journalists and cooperatives. In Nepal, the lack of relevant legislation is a major barrier to national implementation. Effective management of crop genetic resources has also been constrained by inadequate resources,and the long political and economic transition the country is going through. Results show that stakeholders feel that there is no clarity nationally regarding crop genetic resources in the public domain and under the control of the state, and this is problematic for the country's process of confirming which resources it has included in the Plant Treaty's Multilateral System. Interviews revealed a considerable lack of coordination between the government officials responsible for CBD implementation and those involved with Plant Treaty and climate change. Increased collaboration between relevant ministries has been identified as needed for harmonious national implementation. However, in some respects Nepal has taken important decisions regarding implementation, for example when deciding not to join the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants in connection with WTO membership negotiations. Research has shown that in this connection a civil society network and the relationship it had with the government, which was viewed as constructive by all parties, were central. Independent of legislative processes, benefit sharing efforts have had results in some areas of Nepal, for example by making conservation profitable for farmers through the adding of value to produce, marketing efforts, knowledge sharing, participatory plant breeding and cooperation. In this connection national and international NGOs have been important. Unlike Nepal, India has come quite far with regard to national implementation in the form of legislation. Its 2001 Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (the PPVFR Act) provides for plant variety protection while also recognizing Farmers' Rights, and it's Biodiversity Act provides the framework for how access and benefit sharing is to be addressed. However, project results show that the terminology used is posing problems. The country can be said to have adopted a state-centric approach to benefit sharing; the state negotiates ABS agreements and distributes benefits to local communities. The National Biodiversity Authority has entered into over a hundred ABS agreements and dealt with over 600 applications, but is still in the process of distributing funds to local communities. Results show that the country is struggling partly as a result of unclear objectives with regard to benefit sharing, and that monetary benefits have been given more importance than non-monetary. The project findings also indicate that India needs to improve coordination between the PPVFR Act and the Biodiversity Act, and also between these acts and other laws and policies. Project findings also indicate that both India and Nepal are attempting to incorporate both market based and rights based elements in their benefit sharing policies. However, benefit sharing has so far not been integrated within a larger development strategy. Project participants have also taken part in and presented project results at international meetings and conferences, for example when organizing the panel 'International regimes governing genetic resources: Complexity, interplay and implications for domestic implementation' at the ISA 2015 Annual Convention.

The topic for this project is conditions for successful implementation of three international agreements relevant to the sustainable management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA): the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (NP), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). The project focuses on access and benefi t sharing (ABS) under these treaties, as this is important for their prospects of implementation and thus for the management of PGRFA, which in turn is a central factor for the adaptation of food production to climate change. The relationship between the three conventions has the potential for synergies as well as turf struggles. Their normative directions are largely compatible but may in some contexts be conflicting, as they do involve a large number of institutions that face the challenge of effective coordination. The interplay between these agreements and the Agreement on Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is particularly challenging as countries must balance demands for protection of I ntellectual Property Rights with access and benefit sharing and Farmers' Rights. Our case countries are India, as developing country and an emerging economy and Nepal, as a least developed country. Both exceptionally rich in plant biodiversity, they have been active in the international negotiations, and we have good working relationships with researchers in both countries. We will analyse the implementation of the international treaties in terms of ABS in India and Nepal at the national as well as local levels. Further, we will identify the prospects for further implementation in light of the broader context of international regimes and discuss the extent to which these findings have relevance for other countries.