81305584-Provision of technical expertise, advisory and training services for the project

Despite substantive efforts to promote and support the implementation of ABS, the conditions for successful cooperation between providers (e.g. states, indigenous peoples, and local communities) and users (e.g. companies, academia) of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge are not sufficiently developed and are facing a lot of obstacles. Many more focussed efforts are needed to improve the fair and equitable sharing mechanisms that ensure that generated benefits will be invested for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Therefore, the ABS Initiative is committed to: - provide impulses to the international discussion about new concepts for benefit-sharing from the use of biological resources in the context of the GBF. - foster and accompany the establishment of multi-stakeholder partnerships between providers and users of biological resources. - support national and regional actors with the aim to foster the integration of research and development, BioTrade and the use of biological resources and fair benefit-sharing into national trade, economic and conservation policies. - improve the active participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the negotiation of benefit-sharing agreements and the management of sustainable biodiversity-based value chains. To fulfill this commitment the ABS Initiative will focus on: - supporting the further development of concepts for the effective integration of ABS elements - on both, facilitated access (e.g., as stipulated by Nagoya Protocol Art.8) and effective, conservation-oriented benefit-sharing within the GBF, including DSI. - supporting (business and research) partnerships between South-North and South-South, including DSI. - the mobilisation of the private sector for the further development and application of binding and voluntary monetary and non-monetary benefit-sharing instruments and mechanisms between providers and users. - improving the business and research environment and targeted support for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the R&D and BioTrade sector. - Developing sector-wide ABS approaches that help to reduce transaction costs for individual research institutions and businesses, leading to the up-scaling of positive economic, social and environmental impacts at the individual provider/producer or research institution/company level. - the capacity development of national and regional actors to integrate research and development, BioTrade and the use of biological resources and fair benefit-sharing into national trade, economic and conservation policies. - the empowerment and participation of IPLCs in order to enforce their active involvement in political processes and to secure their rights on biological resources and traditional knowledge. The implementation builds on more than a decade of experience, good practices collected, and lessons learned by the ABS Initiative. The development of targeted tools and methodologies for awareness raising and capacity development are the basis for the necessary reinforcement of ABS implementation skills of regulators and actors in more partner countries as well as subregional and regional level. The ABS Initiative generates hands-on examples and best practices relating to the defined outputs (see figure), which in turn support the scaling up to global impacts, e.g. through international or regional partners. The scope of the Initiative for conceptual advice, capacity building and knowledge-sharing is global, for this phase the selected focus countries are Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, South Africa. With the services provided the contractor contributes to the module objective: The conditions for successful cooperation between providers and users of biological resources for the fair sharing of benefits for biodiversity conservation in partner countries are improved. The contractor is required to provide experts with international experience to offer expertise and advisory services to the project and partners on: - New concepts for the implementation of benefit-sharing in the context of the Global Biodiversity Framework - Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (MSP) between providers and users of selected biological resources - Integration of research and development, BioTrade and the use of biological resources and fair benefit-sharing into national trade and economic policies - Participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the negotiation of benefit-sharing agreements and the management of sustainable biodiversity-based value chains. More detailed information can be found in the terms of reference for this tender.