On 8 May 2018, the Meeting of the Project 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 on the territory of the National Landscape Reserve “Naliboksky”. The project is executed by the National Coordination Centre on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharing, the Institute of Genetics and Cytology, NAS of Belarus. The meeting was chaired by the National Project Coordinator ‒ Academician A.V. Kilchevsky. Project Board members, experts and representatives of scientific partner institutions took part in the event.

The Project Manager reported on the project goals and objectives and its implementation strategy. At the Project Board meeting, the reports of experts in law, genetics, folkloristics and linguistics on the Plans of Activities were heard and a procedure and strategies for their implementation were discussed. Based on the meeting results, the Plans of Activities 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 about the holders of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Also, approaches to enhance the Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House and design a database to monitor genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge were discussed.