Regional workshop, Ouagadougou 2003

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 16-18 December 2003

The National Focal Points to the CBD of Burkina Faso and Belgium, in collaboration with the Secretariat to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation, organised a workshop on 'The Clearing House Mechanism: exchange of experiences on its implementation at national level and developing scientific and technical cooperation' in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 16 to 18 December 2003.

This workshop was organised for ex-trainees of francophone partner countries who followed  the training course "Webmaster for the Clearing House Mechanism for partner countries" organised by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

The objectives of the workshop were to

• exchange experiences in the implementation of the CHM at national level, with special reference to the CHM web sites;
• stimulate cooperation between countries within Africa;
• give an introduction to XML for information exchange between countries;
• establish a list of priorities for follow-up training.

Representatives of 10 African countries, Belgium and the Secretariat of the Convention participated in the Workshop (List of participants).

During the workshop, discussions focused on implementation at the national level, cooperation between countries, best practices, etc.

Part of the workshop was also dedicated to an introduction to XML and its usefulness for cooperation between countries for information exchange.

At the end of the workshop the recommendations and the report ( or ) of the workshop were adopted by all participants.

For additional  information on the workshop, you can contact the organisers by email: Han de Koeijer, han.dekoeijer@naturalsciences.be and Soumayila Bancé, bancebo@voila.fr.

For the participants to the workshop, there is a special page with photos of the workshop.