From Policy to Implementation: Decisions from the Fifth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

The fifth meeting was a time to review progress in the implementation of the Convention, to consolidate the gains achieved and to chart the course for the future. Central to this process was the review of the operations of the Convention conducted with a view to providing the sound institutional footing necessary to promote the implementation of the Convention in the coming years. Building on the work of the Inter-Sessional Meeting on the Operations of the Convention, which had been held in June 1999. the Parties adopted decision V/20, which lays out detailed arrangements for the functioning of the various Convention bodies and provides for the development of a Strategic Plan for the Convention as whole, to he adopted at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties.