At the end of the 15th United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15), held in Montreal, Canada in December 2022, 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Agreement on a new global framework for biodiversity. Several recommendations of this framework emphasize the need for the use of online reporting tools for sharing information on biodiversity in country Parties.

As part of the application of these recommendations, the National Biodiversity Coordination through the Ministry in charge of Environment and Sustainable Development with the support of the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium (IRSNB) through its CeBios Program organized a training course on updating the Central African Republic Biodiversity Exchange Center (CHM-RCA) for the period from 10 to 14 July 2023 in Bangui in the Central African Republic.

The objective of this training workshop was to develop the digital portal of the Central African Republic Biodiversity Exchange Mechanism (CHM-RCA). Indeed, the CAR was not able to benefit from the various training courses that were organized by the IRSNB for several French-speaking African countries, including Burundi, in establishing and maintaining their biodiversity portals.

This workshop aims to update the old CHM site to migrate to the new Bioland tool to upgrade the other CHM sites as planned by the General Secretariat on Biological Diversity.

The training workshop saw the participation of officials from the Ministry in charge of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries.

This report presents the progress, results of the mission and recommendations.

1. Course of the mission

As part of the development of South-South cooperation, Burundi was chosen to train the managers of the CHM-RCA thanks to its expertise in using the new Bioland Tool for posting and reporting information on Biodiversity online. Thus, the Burundian expert Mr MBARUSHIMANA Didier presented the achievements of CHM Burundi in order to share the experience. After the Presentation, the Expert trained the participants on how to use the new Bioland Tool on posting and reporting information on Biodiversity.

2. Mission results

At the end of this training workshop, 12 managers were trained on the use of the new Bioland Tool. Thus, several documents, news, events, web pages, videos, etc. containing information on the biodiversity of the CAR have been posted on the CHM RCA website.

At the end of this training workshop, the participants recommend:

• To continue to support the CHM RCA in terms of training (online or in person) and the exchange of experience in posting information on biodiversity until this bioland tool is mastered;
• To advocate for the CHM RCA with the CeBIOS program to continue to support it financially for the sustainability of the activity.

3. Perspectives

Online or face-to-face sessions, if the resources allow, will be organized to take ownership of the achievements on the use of the new Bioland Tool for posting and reporting information on Biodiversity. Also, an online training course on aspects of in-depth site management for the CHM focal point and his assistant is planned according to a consensual schedule.