At the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity the Programme of Work on article 13 Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) was adopted. One of the elements of the work programme was to provide for capacity-building on CEPA for Parties to the Convention. During the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-8) in Curitiba, Brazil in 2006, Parties adopted a priority list of activities. One of these was the development of a toolkit to facilitate this capacity-building and to provide support for the organisation of regional training workshops. The workshops have, as a goal the integration of the tools and methodologies of CEPA into the development, implementation and revision of National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). To accomplish this integration, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity asked IUCN to develop a CEPA toolkit for these NBSAP training workshops for use by focal points to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This toolkit is meant to be used by CBD focal points and those to whom the implementation of a NBSAP is delegated at the national level.
As a first step the IUCN CEPA toolkit team carried out a web based demand articulation survey (1-15 April 2006) among 650 addresses1. From 1- 31 May 2006 a web based supply side survey was conducted among 320 addresses . On the basis of the conclusions from the surveys the IUCN team has prepared a new outline for the toolkit. This draft was circulated among 410 CEPA experts worldwide. The feedback was positive and in line with suggestions from the earlier surveys. Telephone interviews clarified this further.
In December 2006 – during and after a meeting with the Informal Advisory Committee on CEPA to the Executive Secretary to the Convention on Biological Diversity - the outline of the toolkit was further discussed. A lively discussion on lessons learned on implementation of CEPA and the use of toolkits was exchanged with representatives from UNEP, Ramsar, UNFCC, GTZ, SCBD and IUCN. The toolkit has greatly benefited from these inputs.
The toolkit consists of 4 sections that contain guidance and tools for CEPA interventions by NBSAP coordinators.
Section 1. What is CEPA and how to get started
Section 2. How to network and raise awareness?
Section 3. How to engage stakeholders and mainstream biodiversity?
Section 4. How to plan communication strategically?
The sections and the issues in each section are based on the surveys exploring the questions end users have. Most of the content is organised on the basis of the question ‘how to’. As NBSAP coordinators are busy people and have little time to read, the content of each HOW TO aspect of CEPA in all sections is presented in three different ways:
Fact sheets
Examples
Checklists
The toolkit in this way offers an opportunity for readers to flip through and zap from one page that attracts their attention to another that could be of immediate use to them. The toolkit is not meant to read as a text book or manual on communication from A-Z.
