Biodiversity officials and reporters trained on use of digital platform ahead of UN global biodiversity summit
The national biodiversity experts and officials from Bhutan, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Cambodia gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal to explore new ways to monitor and report on the state of nature in their countries. The meeting was held from 17-19 September.
At the event, joint organizers, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP), and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), gave key regional stakeholders the opportunity to test new tools and approaches to streamline, improve the accuracy and reduce the burden of reporting.
The new, pro-bono, private and secure national data reporting tool (DaRT), developed by UNEP and funded by the government of Switzerland and the European Union, can organize, store, and share the data needed for all current conventions and targets. The organizers have also sought to increase knowledge of reporting methods, with a focus on cross-ministerial and interdisciplinary cooperation.
As signatories to the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, countries are obligated to report against 23 action-oriented targets with national alignments and priorities reflected in the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan being prepared by the Parties. National focal points and reporters for biodiversity-related MEAs have to report against these targets in addition to several other conventions and treaties that their countries are signatory to: Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), International Whaling Commission (IWC, where applicable), the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the World Heritage Convention (WHC).
Every time a new framework agreement is signed, or new global targets are set, there are additional reporting obligations. The burden of reporting is based on the new targets and indicators spread across several departments/focal ministries, even when there are overlapping targets and indicators. To address the reporting requirements the countries must invest considerable resources in data gathering, data mining, and reporting.
An official from ICIMOD said that the new tool, which is free and can be used on a voluntary basis provides an opportunity to bring together all the required data and reporting on to one platform, allowing for convergence, streamlining, and cooperation in reporting while clearly seeing the linkages to other reporting and their contributions to various targets, including SDGs and national targets. This adds efficiency, avoids duplication and ensures consistency in data reporting.
The approach to streamlining is to bring all reports on one platform, which allows for better alignment toward the set targets and indicators and making contributions to various global and national targets simple. The DaRT is a practical tool that provides private and secure national workspaces enabling countries to organize, share and store information, data, and knowledge across conventions and according to national, regional, and global environmental objectives. The DaRT tool is free.
The national biodiversity experts and officials shared that there are time and resource constraints to reporting for all countries. Reducing the overlaps and streamlining data compilation and reporting will benefit countries like Bhutan. DaRT is a one-window solution that significantly reduces the burden of “data mining” during the preparation of national reports.
Hari Bahadur KC, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Government of Nepal, strongly endorsed the initiative saying: “This will help us organise and share information for the various conventions and in systematic development of institutional knowledge for data generation and reporting.”
Diane Klaimi, UNEP’s DaRT team leader, said: “Our hope is that DaRT will significantly alleviate the burden of reporting many governments face in this critical decade for nature, and ultimately ensure more government resources continue to flow to the crucial national and local policies and strategies to halt and reverse nature loss.”
The National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) aligned with the global biodiversity goals are a key document that nations are expected to deliver at next month’s 16th UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties. DaRT can facilitate the integration of other important global biodiversity-related multilateral environmental agreements, running from the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Convention on Migratory Species, to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the World Heritage Convention.
W.K. Rathnadeera, Senior Programme Officer of SACEP, said: “SACEP welcomes this innovative tool, which we believe has the potential to significantly reduce the human and financial resources our member countries spend on reporting.”
By Sangay Rabten, Thimphu
