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Responsibility for negotiating the Convention was given to the two working groups. Working Group I, chaired by Ahmed Djoghlaf (Algeria), was responsible for the sections of the main Convention on: the preamble; principles; objectives; structure and nature of commitments; national action programmes; regional action programmes; capacity building, education and public awareness; financial resources and mechanisms; and coordination and cooperation. At the conclusion of the session, Working Group I had reached consensus on most of the articles under its mandate. The substantive problems that remain include the inclusion of an article on principles in the text, all matters related to financial resources and mechanisms, and the commitments of developed country Parties [and other Parties in a position to provide assistance].
Working Group II, chaired by Anne de Lattre (France), was responsible for the sections on: definitions, technology transfer and cooperation; research and development; information collection, analysis and exchange; institutions; procedures; final clauses; and the regional instruments. At the conclusion of the session, Working Group II had reached consensus on most issues of the main Convention except: categories of countries; subsidiary bodies; reservations or exceptions open to the Parties; and the obligations of a withdrawing Party. In response to the polarized positions of the different regional groups at the onset of the negotiations, the Chair relied on informal contact groups to resolve the most contentious issues. Four contact groups were established during the course of the negotiations. Prof. al-Kassas of Egypt chaired the groups dealing with the use of terms (Article 1) and institutions (Part IV). Jean-Dieudonne Ntsama of Cameroon chaired the group covering: information collection, analysis and exchange; research and development; and transfer, acquisition, adaptation and development of technology.
To facilitate greater understanding of the evolving Convention, the following is a summary of the status of each article. The article numbers are consistent with document A/AC.241/15/Rev.3, issued informally at the conclusion of the fourth session.
PART I: INTRODUCTION
PREAMBLE: At the beginning of this session, eleven of the paragraphs in the Preamble contained brackets. However, by the conclusion, only four paragraphs were still under negotiation and two of these were new ones. Consensus was reached on paragraphs that address: