BCH Reports & Reviews

Once a year the Secretariat reports on the operation of the Biosafety Clearing-House. Primary data, such as the number and regional distribution of National Focal Points, as well as the number of records made available through the BCH, are reported below. Detailed reports on the activities and partnership arrangements that have been entered into, as well as feedback provided by Parties and other Governments on their experiences with the operation of the BCH, are also available from this page.

Sections

BCH Log Reports (number of records and visits per year)
BCH Annual Reports (issued by the Secretariat)
User survey, feedback and other publication on the BCH

BCH Log Reports (number of records and visits per year)

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BCH records per year			2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2010-2011
								(%)

National Contacts
	Protocol focal points		186	191	187	174	174	(0%)
		Africa (AFR)	51	55	56	53	51	(-4%)
		Asia-Pacific (AP)	44	46	48	45	45	(0%)
		CEE	26	25	25	24	23	(-4%)
		GRULAC	38	37	33	29	33	(+12%)
		WEOG	27	28	25	23	22	(-4%)
	BCH focal points		186	190	191	185	183	(-1%)
		Africa (AFR)	50	53	53	53	49	(-8%)
		Asia-Pacific (AP)	49	49	52	51	50	(-2%)
		CEE	24	23	23	22	23	(+4%)
		GRULAC	32	32	33	29	32	(+9%)
		WEOG	31	33	30	30	29	(-3%)
	Article 17 focal points		63	73	80	79	80	(+1%)
	Competent National Authorities		267	314	346	348	355	(+2%)
	National biosafety websites and databases		84	99	105	108	120	(+10%)
Total records (1)			674	753	790	795	811	(+2%)

Laws & Regulations
	National laws		438	541	572	593	693	(+14%)
	Bilateral, multilateral and regional agreements		41	41	39	13	23	(+43%)
	Other					2	16	(+87%)
Total records (1)			479	582	612	608	732	(+17%)

Country's Decisions and other Communications
	Decisions under AIA (2)		5	7	306	326	459	(+29%)
	Decisions under Art. 11.1 (LMO-FFPs)		495	574	617	640	620	(-3%)
	Other decisions and declarations		49	100	350	354	287	(-23%)
Total records (1)			549	681	771	801	944	(+15%)

Risk assessments reports (3)			1,292	1,951	388	453	599	(+24%)

Roster of Experts
	Roster of experts members (4)		645	0	75	86	127	(+32%)
	Reports on expert assignments		0	0	0	0	1	(+100%)
Total records (1)			645	0	75	86	128	(+33%)

*Total records submitted by countries*			*3,639*	*3,967*	*2,636*	*2,743*	*3,214*	*(+15%)*

BCH Registries
	LMO registry		171	289	331	346	383	(+10%)
	Gene registry		57	176	229	254	305	(+17%)
	Parental Organism registry		71	151	140	148	165	(+10%)
Total records			299	616	700	748	853	(+12%)

Capacity-building activities
	Capacity Building Activities, Projects and Opportunities (5)		248	265	207	339	366	(+7%)
	Capacity needs and priorities		53	59	60	15	30	(+50%)
Total records			301	324	367	354	396	(+11%)

International Organizations			142	190	209	216	244	(+11%)

Records in the Scientific Bibliographic Database (by ICGEB)			7,017	7,834	7,711	7,783	7,866	(+1%)

Records in the Biosafety Information Resource Centre (BIRC) (6)			742	933	1,002	1,136	1,187	(+4%)

*Total number of records in the BCH*			*12,140*	*13,864*	*12,625*	*12,980*	*13,760*	*(+6%)*



BCH records per year			2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2011-2012 (%)

Visits					123,476	149,421	188,352	(+26%)
	Average Visits Per Day				338	409	516

Unique Visitors					78,560	87,307	110,986	(+27%)
	Average Unique Visitors Per Day				215	239	304

Pageviews					516,997	716,335	881,675	(+23%)
	Average Pageviews Per Day				1,416	1,962	2,415

Notes:
(1) The difference between the sum of the records listed in each category and the total number of records is due to the possibility that one record contains information for more than one category (e.g. a focal point may have more than one role); in this case the same record is listed two or three times in the breakdown.
(2) In September 2009, following a revision of the common formats for the submission of information, hundreds of decisions under AIA (introduction into the environment) submitted in previous years, were made visible after the solution of an ambiguity in the former common format for the submission of information on Decisions under Article 11.1 (LMO-FFPs).
(3) In September 2009, following a revision of the common format for the submission of information, more than 2000 risk assessment records were removed because they did not specify the LMO that was the object of the risk assessment.
(4) In August 2008, following up a COP-MOP request in decision BS-IV/4, all experts previously registered in the Roster were removed.
(5) In 2010 the categories Capacity-building opportunities, projects, training and education programmes and report on initiatives were merged in a single category.
(6) Prior to 2007 the records contained in the Scientific Bibliographic Database and the Biosafety Information Resource Centre were combined in a single database
(7) Data produced by Google Analytics

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BCH Annual Reports

Annual reviews of the operation of the BCH are provided by the Secretariat at the end of each calendar year in accordance with Section G (reports on activities) of the BCH’s Modalities of Operation.

Search the BCH Annual Reports:

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User survey, feedback and other publications on the BCH

The implementation and operation of the BCH are subject to periodic review, which include consultation with a wide variety of BCH users. Results of these reviews are usually submitted to the attention of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol (COP-MOP) as information documents.

2010	•	UNEP/CBD/BS/COP-MOP/5/INF/1 - Study of users and potential users of the Biosafety Clearing-House; by Aleksej Tarasjev.
2009	•	Terminal Evaluation of project Building Capacity for Participation in the Biosafety Clearing-House (BCH) - Phase I (GF/6010-04-02 (4771) - GFL/2328-2716-4771). Evaluation conducted by Hugo Navajas in July 2009 for the UNEP Evaluation and Oversight Unit. Executive Summary, Lessons Learned, Findings and Recommendations as well as EOU Commentary are also available on the GEF website.
	•	Results of the RA&RM and Capacity Building Forums' Survey (conducted by SCBD in March 2009)
2008	•	Effective participation in the Biosafety Clearing House: Participation options and impediments to information provision. An academic report prepared by Ms. Aarti Gupta, Assistant Professor, Wageningen University for the UNEP-GEF BCH Project, May 2008.
	•	Learning from Experience - The Global UNEP-GEF BCH Capacity Building Project
	•	External BCH Security Audit (requested by COP-MOP decision BS-III/2)
	•	Report of the 2007 Survey of BCH Users (requested by COP-MOP decision BS-III/2)
2006	•	Recommendations of the BCH Regional Advisors for the Central Portal: Experiences of One Year as Regional Advisors
	•	Submissions regarding constraints on making information available to the BCH (requested by COP-MOP decision BS-III/2): EU; Norway
	•	Bridging the gap between researchers and policy-makers: International collaboration through the Biosafety Clearing-House. Kirsty Galloway Mclean, Environ. Biosafety Res. 4 (2005) 123–126.
2005	•	BCH Internal Review (requested by COP-MOP decision BS-I/3)
2003	•	Views on the transition between the pilot phase and the fully operational and functional BCH (requested in ICCP recommendation 3/3): Australia; EU; Paraguay; Switzerland; USA; ICGEB; OECD; WWF
	•	Questionnaire on resources and expertise available in countries for the exchange of information with the BCH (submitted by the UNEP-GEF Biosafety Projects)
2002	•	Independent Evaluation of the BCH Pilot Phase Implementation - by T. Peterson (requested in ICCP recommendation 1/4)

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Update on 2013-09-17

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