Third Focal Points Meeting,
11-12 March 2005 The project will hold its Third Focal Points Meeting
on March 11-12, 2005 at FAO-RAP, Bangkok, Thailand. During
the meeting the following will be taken up: 1) country report
(present status of the national biosafety program; 2) accomplishments
of the project; 3) work plan; and 4) the Asian Bionet activity.
Regional
Training Workshop
The second regional training workshop on Public Awareness
and Participation with emphasis on Risk Communication was
jointly conducted by the project with the Bureau of Plant
Industry (BPI) of the Department of Agriculture, Philippines
in Manila from 21-25 June 2004. Twenty-one researchers (8
male and 15 female) attended the training workshop. The
resource persons were from the government, the industry
and NGOs.
National Training Workshops
In cooperation with the National Focal Points nine national
Training Workshops were conducted from May to October 2004.
The topics of each workshop depended on the priority need
of the country in terms of its biosafety activities. However,
all of the topics taken up geared towards the development
or strengthening of each country’s National Biosafety
Framework. Countries which have conducted their national
training workshops were: Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
(Summary
of national workshops, PDF)
Second
Focal Points Meeting
The second focal points meeting was held from 11-12 March
2004 at FAO-RAP Office in Bangkok. During the meeting the
following were discussed: 1) status of the Biosafety of
the project in each country; 2) presentation and discussion
of the benchmark document; 3) approval of the 2004-2005
work plan; 4) long-term strategy; 5) management of the Asian
Bionet website.
In addition to the focal points and project secretariat,
the representative from the donor country, FAO-RAP officers
and representative from other international and national
agencies in Thailand working on biotechnology attended the
meeting.
Benchmark Document
in Biosafety of GM Crops in Asia
The benchmark document prepared by Dr. Anupam Varma is now
available. This document highlights the advances in Biotechnology
of each participating country and the status of capacity
building in biosafety of GM crops (see publication and shared
document).
Dr Nobuyuki Kabaki
Biotechnology/
Biosafety Expert
Regional Project on Capacity Building in Biosafety on GM Crops
in Asia (GCP/RAS/185/JPN)
Mailing address:
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Maliwan Mansion
39 Phra Atit Road, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Tel: (662) 697-4150
Fax: (662) 697-4216
Email: nobuyuki.kabaki@fao.org
