International Treaty National Focal Points Discuss Global Plan of Action

(June 26, 2024) – The Secretariat of the International Treaty is supporting the organization of a series of regional consultations this year on the Second Global Plan of Action (GPA) for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and facilitating the participation of the National Focal Points of the International Treaty and relevant experts.

The consultations are organized in collaboration with the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) and the FAO Plant Production and Protection Division of FAO. The first two regional consultations have been held in May in collaboration with regional partners. The first was for the Africa region and was held in Nairobi, Kenya, while the second one was held in Cali, Colombia, for the Latin America and the Caribbean region.

The Second GPA, adopted by the FAO Council in 2011, lays out a series of agreed priority plans and actions for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. The regional consultations are held to review and revise the GPA in response to findings of The Third Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture^[1].

The first two regional consultations provided National Focal Points (NFPs) of the International Treaty and other participants the opportunity to make general recommendations on the improvement of the structure of the GPA, and discuss how to incorporate linkages with other monitoring processes and new cross-cutting topics, such as Digital Sequence Information (DSI).

Participants from more than 20 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered at the Alliance Bioversity International & CIAT in Colombia to discuss priorities for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. The consultation in Kenya brought together participants from over 40 countries from sub-Saharan Africa at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) to consider priorities for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. The International Treaty NFPs referred to the important contributions of the Treaty mechanisms, in particular, the national reports and the Global Information System vis-à-vis the GPA on PGRFA.

The periodic reports on the state of the world’s plant genetic resources and the rolling GPA prepared under the guidance of the CGRFA also support the implementation of the International Treaty. In fact, the review of the Second GPA is among the milestones mentioned in the International Treaty’s multi-year program of work for this biennium, adopted by the Governing Body of the International Treaty at its Tenth Session, along with a mandate for collaboration with the Commission (Resolution 11/2023). The importance of the GPA is referred to in Article 14 of the International Treaty and this particular collaboration for the update is embedded in Article 17.3.

The next regional consultation is scheduled to take place in the Near East and North Africa region and will take place in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 9 – 11 July 2024. Following that will be the Asia regional consultation in Bangkok, Thailand, at the end of July 2024. The regional consultations for the Europe and the North America regions are being planned for later this year (dates and venues to be confirmed).

The contributions of the consultations will be considered by the 12^th Session of the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in December 2024, and the Commission on Genetic Resources will consider a revised GPA at its 20th Regular Session in March 2025