From 17 to 18 April 2017 in the premises of the Star Hotel in Bujumbura, the first meeting of members of the National Committee on APA was held. This meeting was organized as part of the project “Ratification and Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Use in COMIFAC Space Countries” project under the funding of UNEP.

The work of this meeting was opened by a speech by the Director General of the Burundian Office for Environmental Protection (OBPE) who, in his speech, congratulated the members of the APA National Committee (CNAPA) for having been appointed by their ministries and institutions to contribute to the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in the interest of the entire Burundian nation.

We have learned a lot about APA, he pointed out. He then said that this meeting was the first step in operationalizing the policies, instruments and tools that Burundi has already developed in order to establish mechanisms for accessing genetic resources and sharing the benefits that flow from them. In the same speech, it was an opportunity to show the various achievements that Burundi has already made in the area of ABS.

This opening speech was followed by the screening of a video film illustrating the origins of the Nagoya Protocol as well as its objectives. This was followed by a series of presentations by the APA Focal Point, Msc. NZIGIDAHERA Benoît. The first presentation focused on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Sharing of Benefits Arising from the Use of Genetic Resources.

During this presentation, the presenter emphasized the goals of the Nagoya Protocol, which aim to ensure that those who access genetic resources share the monetary and non-monetary benefits they derive from these resources with the countries of origin and the local communities in these countries. Continuing his presentation, he said that the CNAPA is responsible for implementing the vision of the Nagoya Protocol by establishing a climate of mutual trust between users and suppliers, establishing a more precise legal framework to ensure the ABS mechanism, ensuring legal certainty and access to justice for contract parties, and encouraging suppliers to direct benefits to biodiversity conservation.

Before concluding this presentation, the APA Focal Point mentioned the issues relevant to Burundi which are: having actors who are well informed about the challenges of the protocol, knowledge of genetic resources and their stocks, knowledge of all the activities taking place in the country, the protection of traditional knowledge, the protection of traditional knowledge, knowing how to negotiate, having a solid law and having good governance in the country.

The ^2nd presentation focused on the current situation of the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in Burundi. In this presentation, the aim was to assess the progress already made in implementing the Nagoya Protocol from 2014 to 2017.

After these two presentations, the APA Focal Point then presented the CNAPA mission and then asked the participants to give their views on this mission and to propose the modalities of its implementation. After various interventions, the participants converged on the establishment of a management structure for CNAPA.

This is how Professor Marie Josée BIGENDAKO was appointed president of CNAPA. Its vice president is the Director General of OBPE. The Permanent Secretariat was entrusted to the APA Focal Point, Msc. NZIGIDAHERA Benoît, his assistant being BIGIRIMANA Jean Claude. After the establishment of this management structure, it was an opportunity to define the frequency of meetings. It was agreed that regular meetings would be held once a quarter while extraordinary meetings would be held whenever required.

On the second day of the meeting, activities consisted of the establishment of the 2017 program for CNAPA and the preparation of national workshops to raise awareness among decision makers, researchers and traditional practitioners on Access and Sharing of Benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

During the two-day meeting, the following recommendations were made:

• Develop the rules of procedure;
• Organize meetings to prepare awareness-raising tools;
• Create commissions at the level of the CNAPA according to the circumstances;
• Include the scientific research authority at the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research in the genetic resources management system;
• Approaching the delegate of the Minister of Public Health and the Fight against AIDS at the CNAPA to show the Minister in charge of Health the relevance of the memorandum of understanding between researchers and traditional practitioners;
• Identify other users of the country's genetic resources.