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The
fifth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) for the Convention to
Combat Desertification Geneva, Switzerland, 1-12 October 2001 |
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12:00 midnight. The contact group on programme and budget has broken up again after another deadlock An agreement two hours ago to establish a permanent CRIC that meets for two weeks in between COPs and two weeks during the COP is the cause of the delay. Apparently, having initially agreed on a 12% budget increase for the Secretariat and a 33% increase for the Global Mechanism, this new decision on the CRIC requires a renegotiation of these amounts. But after an hour-and-a-half of negotiating, there is still no agreement and the prospect of the COW resuming in the next hour seems quite ambitious |
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President
Basset convened the final Plenary session at 6:50 am Saturday
Listen to Charles Basset's comments on the workings of the COP |
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At 2:40 am on Saturday, 13 October, Chair Jabbari convened the last meeting of the COW in parallel with the contact group on programme and budget and invited delegates to adopt its draft decisions for transmission to the COP | ||
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Adoption
of the Report of the COW:
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The
COP-5 President noted that the adoption of the decision on the CRIC
necessitated the election of a CRIC Chair. Basset reported that he had
been informed that following informal consultations, it had been
agreed that the position would be held on rotational basis with the
first Chair coming from the African group, and that Amb. Rougatien
Biaou, Benin, had been proposed as Chair
Biaou was elected CRIC Chair by acclamation |
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Finally, delegates considered draft decision on programme and budget for the biennium 2002-2003. Cuba requested that "and a draft scale of assessment" be added to Paragraph 15, which requests the Executive Secretary, in the proposed programme and budget for the biennium 2004-2005 and the performance report, to include detailed tables and narrative of the implemented, as well as proposed expenditures, resource requirements for each subsidiary body under the budget line for substantive support to the COP and its subsidiary bodies specified according to the actual Fund utilized. The meeting was briefly suspended for delegates to consider the new draft decision, and reconvened to adopt it following a minor typographical change. The US asked that her concern about the size of the budget be noted, and said she does not foresee similar increases in the future, noted the lack of transparency with regard to use of the budget and strongly supported budget reform. Brazil made a reservation, noting it will follow the scale of assessment agreed at COP-1.
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Adoption
of the Report of the CST: Listen to Chair Brown's closing remarks
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© 2001, Earth Negotiations Bulletin. All rights reserved. |
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