DSI: Time for the North to Pay Up

Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms
and Cell Cultures GmbH

By Edward Hammond, Third World Network

OEWG 4 delegates are nearing critical decisions on digital sequence information (DSI) that will determine whether future sequence sharing will happen in a multilateral system, or if a more complicated and possibly chaotic situation of varying national approaches to DSI access will emerge as developing country Parties try to avoid being ripped off.

Sharing of DSI benefits all, but not in an equitable way. The present system subsidises the Northern biotechnology industry to a far greater extent than it supports the Convention. While the hopes of many in all regions are for a multilateral solution that allows DSI to be widely shared, the form of such a system remains unclear.

DSI inequities are underappreciated in the North, and by Northern scientists, but any potential multilateral system must squarely address them or else developing countries will have no practical choice but to use national benefit sharing rules for DSI similar to those used for physical specimens under the Nagoya Protocol.

Africa has said that it will not permit the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to be adopted without a DSI solution. But the lack of any serious benefit sharing proposals from the North, which should sum well into the billions of dollars, into an international fund, is fuelling fears of a DSI logjam at COP 15.

With backing from the Rockefeller Foundation, philanthropists are being asked to donate to a DSI “bridge fund”.  This initiative, however, is drawing concern because it mixes charity with fulfilment of benefit sharing obligations. Southern delegates privately fear that Rockefeller and Northern government pledges will be used to allay Southern concerns but that those promises won’t be kept.

If a multilateral solution is found, a key question is the degree to which Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities will govern benefits. Because of IPLCs strong record in conservation, some governments and CSOs advocate for IPLCs to substantially control benefit-sharing funds, and for funds to support IPLCs development of their own knowledge systems and conservation practices.

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