On 8 May 2018, the meeting of the Coordination Board of the UNDP-GEF International Technical Assistance Project “Strengthening of human resources, legal frameworks and institutional capacities to implement the Nagoya Protocol in the Republic of Belarus” of March 30, 2018 No. 2/ 18/000874 was held in the National Landscape Reserve “Naliboksky”. The project is executed by the National Coordination Center on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharing at the Institute of Genetics and Cytology, the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The meeting was chaired by the National Project Coordinator ‒ Academician A.V. Kilchevsky. The members of the Project Coordination Board, experts and representatives of scientific partner organizations took part in the event.

The Project Manager reported on the goals and objectives of the project and the strategy for its implementation. At the Board meeting, the reports of experts in law, genetics, folkloristics and linguistics on the action plans were heard and the procedure and strategies for their implementation were discussed. Based on the meeting results, the plans of action were approved for an analytical review of the legal regulation on the conservation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, as well as work on collecting information on the holders of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Also, approaches to enhancing the Access and Benefit-sharing Clearing-House and designing a database for monitoring of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge were discussed.