African Regional Preparatory Meeting for AEWA MOP6

 

The Secretariat of the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (UNEP/AEWA) is organizing an African Regional preparatory meeting for the 6th Session of the Meeting of the Parties to AEWA (Pre-MOP6), kindly hosted by the Government of the Republic of South Africa. The AEWA African Pre-MOP6 meeting will take place from 25 - 27 August 2015 at the African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel and Conference Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. 

 

This meeting will enable the National Focal Points (NFPs) from the AEWA African Contracting Parties to deliberate on key issues of relevance to the conservation of migratory waterbirds in the region, to be addressed at the 6th Session of the AEWA Meeting of the Parties (MOP6), which will take place from 9 - 14 November 2015 in Bonn, Germany. NFPs will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a number of important MOP6 documents on issues including the development of waterbird monitoring along the African-Eurasian Flyways, potential impacts of marine fisheries on migratory seabirds within the Afro-tropical region and issues relating to the financial and administrative operation of the Agreement over the next triennium. Associated draft MOP6 resolutions on these issues will also be explored. The meeting will thus provide a platform for NFPs to prepare input towards the decisions to be made by Parties at MOP6. It will also enable NFPs to negotiate and establish regional positions on major issues to be presented to the AEWA MOP6.

 

One of the key tools that will be used by the meeting participants is the manual on the roles and responsibilities of National Focal Points for CMS and its instruments (CMS Family NFP Manual). 

 

The organization of this African Pre-MOP6 meeting responds to the need for strengthening the involvement of the African Contracting Parties in the AEWA planning and decision-making processes, as laid out in the AEWA Plan of Action for Africa 2012-2017.  

 

The AEWA African Pre-MOP6 meeting will be immediately preceded by a Southern African sub-regional workshop on preventing the risk of poisoning of migratory birds, taking place on 24 August 2015 in Cape Town. This workshop is jointly organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (UNEP/CMS), the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat and the Coordinating Unit for the CMS Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey in Africa and Eurasia (Raptors MoU), and equally hosted by the Government of South Africa.

 

Both events are made possible thanks to a generous financial contribution from the European Commission (EC) through the ENRTP Strategic Cooperation Agreement between the Directorate General for the Environment and UNEP under a joint CMS and AEWA capacity-building project, as well as co-funding from the Government of the Republic of South Africa.