Chaired by Egypt, UN Biodiversity Convention adopts 2021 interim budget

CAIRO – 28 November 2020: Egypt held the second extraordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP14), in which the convention’s interim budget for 2021 was adopted, according to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Environment on Saturday.

 

“We exerted hard efforts in successive meetings to approve the COP14 budget of 2021 to create a balance between all parties,” said Egyptian Minister Yasmine Fouad in the statement.

 

The COP14 Secretariat praised Egypt's efforts and leadership during its one-year presidency of the conference amid the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, the statement said.

 

“Further to my communication opening the resumed sessions, I am pleased to announce that the extraordinary meetings that were held, through the silence procedure, from 16 to 19 November 2020, and from 25 to 27 November 2020 (resumed sessions), have finally achieved their objective of adopting an interim budget for the year 2021 for the operations of the Convention and its Secretariat,” said Yasmine Fouad, President of the 14th Conference of the Parties.

 

This round of Conference of the Parties meeting was held extraordinary and virtually for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic. China will assume the Conference of the Parties' presidency (COP15) in 2021.