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WORKING GROUP I

Chair Mahmoud ould El Ghaouth recalled that decisions have to be made by the Group at this Session on the outstanding issues of: the GM; the designation of the Permanent Secretariat; programme and budget; and financial rules. He encouraged delegates to try to resolve the latter three and not leave them pending until the GM issue is resolved. The Chair then announced that the Group’s work would be postponed and concluded on Thursday. He quickly adjourned the meeting to allow for the core group that began work on Monday, 13 January, to continue negotiating the GM’s function of mobilizing and channelling resources.

The informal working group met briefly in the afternoon for a progress report on negotiations on the Global Mechanism and the administrative arrangements for the Permanent Secretariat. The Chair reported that the core group had not completed its work and that it would continue to meet for the rest of the afternoon and report back at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, 15 January. The meeting was suspended for half an hour and reconvened for the discussion on administrative arrangements for the Permanent Secretariat.

DESIGNATION OF A PERMANENT SECRETARIAT AND ARRANGEMENTS FOR ITS FUNCTIONING: ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS: The informal working group met for less than three minutes. The Chair reported that no agreement had been reached on the informal consultations on paragraph 3 of the Chair’s draft decision, circulated Thursday, 10 January. The paragraph refers to the Permanent Secretariat of the Convention being institutionally linked to either the UN or UNEP, “while not being fully integrated to the work programme and management structure of any particular department or programme.” The Chair urged delegates to continue with the informal consultations on the subject, and expressed hope that consensus could be reached by Wednesday evening.