Since the late 1970s the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) has delivered services that support implementation of international biodiversity-related agreements at global, regional and national levels. These services not only support the work of the agreement secretariats, but also of the advisory and governance bodies, and of governments party to the various agreements. This section illustrates examples of work we have undertaken.

The support that UNEP-WCMC provides is based on expert understanding of the agreements and how they work, resulting from many years of experience and close relationships with secretariats. There are two key elements to this, which are essential to UNEP-WCMC’s ability to deliver relevant products and services.

• Regular meetings with secretariat staff aid in planning the work that UNEP-WCMC can do to support conventions, and where possible this is translated into mutually agreed programmes of work.
• Participation in major meetings for those conventions with which UNEP-WCMC is regularly working, both to listen to and participate in relevant deliberations, and to liaise with other participants.

 The breadth of this work is described in a six page paper Improving International Environmental Governance: 30 years supporting the Multilateral Environmental Agreements.

The Centre works to support the implementation of CITES through a range of activities, while also supporting the implementation of EU wildlife trade regulations. Please click these links for more information on the Centre's support. 

The Centre supports the CBD through a number of activities:

• Facilitating assessment of achievement of globally adopted goals and targets through the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
• Working with the CBD secretariat on both editions of the Global Biodiversity Outlook and on the GreenFacts Digest
• Building capacity at the national level on Biodiversity Indicators for National Use working with partners in Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya and Ukraine
• Developing guidelines for assessing biodiversity impact of trade liberalization in the agriculture sector
• Supporting the High-Level Panel (HLP) on Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020

Our section on the CBD contains more information on the history and context of the Convention and useful links. 

The programme of work, found below, identifies a number of areas where UNEP-WCMC and CBD will collaborate, including, among others, biodiversity indicators, marine and coastal biodiversity, protected areas and capacity-building for National Biodiversity Strategies and Actions Plans (NBSAPs).

• Programme of work - UNEP-WCMC supporting the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 (pdf, 254Kb)

UNEP-WCMC supports the CMS and its Annex II agreements through the following types of activities:

• Design and maintenance of the CMS Information Management System based on listed species, information submitted by parties, and national reports
• Hosting the Convention on Migratory Species and the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement websites
• Development and management of the Online Reporting System for the CMS family of environmental agreements 
• Development and management of the marine turtle interactive mapping system for the IOSEA Marine Turtle MoU

The centre provides support to UNESCO in the evaluation of World Heritage sites, and support to a number of conventions through information in the World Database on Protected Areas.

Because of extensive work with conventions on reporting and information management, the Centre is well placed to support increased harmonization. This section of our website looks in more depth at these projects. Additionally, the Centre supports the joint implementation of many conventions and looks to identify potential synergies between the various Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).