Closing statement by Astrid Schomaker Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Closing statement by Astrid Schomaker Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity Second meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Benefit- sharing from the Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources 16 August 2024 Thank you, Liu Ning, representative of the President of the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, Distinguished delegates, Dear fri. [...] You have managed, and you have remained true to the Conference of the Parties decision by which the mechanism was established. [...] And then, and I am sure that I speak on behalf of all of you, when, once again, I express my gratitude to the Co-Chairs of the Committee of the Whole, Mphatso Kalemba of Malawi and William Lockhart of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for the remarkable facilitation job that they have done since their election. [...] While I am in my “thank you” part of the list of remarks, of course I would like to thank Salima Kempenaer of Belgium, Nneka Nicholas of Antigua and Barbuda, Eliška Rolfová of Czechia and Joaquín Salzberg of Argentina for facilitating the crucial negotiations that took place, sometimes late at night, and to a soundtrack, in the contact groups. [...] That complemented the discussions held within the informal advisory group established by the Working Group and contributed to the quality, depth and clarity of the negotiations that you have had here over the last few days.