Namibia has been urged to consolidate and harmonise its laws that regulate access to and use of biological resources.
These sentiments were shared at a four-day meeting aimed at discussing the coordination and collaboration of relevant line ministries to implement the Access to Biological and Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge Act.
The Act seeks to regulate access to biological or genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge to protect the rights of local communities over biological and natural resources.
The high potential of access and benefit sharing for Namibia is vital for the country's economy and health sector, considering its variety of plants, animals, and other natural resources that have made it onto foreign shelves.
These include devil's claw medicine, hoodia tablets, and Maroela cosmetics.
However, equitable access to and benefits from these resources remains a challenge.
Namibia has been advised to set up facilities to process its own resources before exporting, train and capacitate communities, and coordinate existing regulatory processes for positive results.
Namibia is obliged to put in place legal and institutional frameworks for the effective coordination, collaboration, awareness raising, and implementation of access and benefit-sharing modalities and procedures in the country as part of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilisation to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Traditional knowledge management is another area to look at, as many indigenous and local communities in Namibia have relied on genetic resources to preserve and maintain biodiversity.
Access to and use of biological diversity are governed by a number of laws; however, regulators are left to ponder whether legal instruments that grant access to and use of the country's biological resources correlate and if the processes of issuing permits, certificates, licences, and authorizations are mutually reinforcing.
The meeting is expected to, among other things, create awareness and cross-cutting legislation related to the Access and Benefit Sharing Act and its Implementation by different line ministries.