RELACIÓN ACIDO FOLICO VS ESTADO NUTRICIONAL

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According to Mikitin (1995):

“The basic legal concept behind a trust device is that property is managed by one person or group (usually referred to as “trustee(s)”) for the identified goals or benefit of a second person or group (usually referred to as

“beneficiary(ies)”).”

Trusts set up by a donor to support forest conservation are normally capitalised with a lump sum grant, and governed by a group of trustees often including representatives from key donor, the government, local NGOs and community groups. The trustees, through their Board of Directors, control how the trust’s capital assets are managed and how income is spent. They are legally bound to act in accordance with the objective of the trust and may have to follow a trust administrative manual. Trustees frequently contract out asset management to an independent private investment firm.

Trusts may be permanent (the original capital investment is maintained over time), sinking (capital is drawn down over a fixed period), or revolving (funds are regularly replenished), on-shore or off-shore, charitable or private, have one or several investors, and may differ greatly in the conditions attached to their management. Despite their variety, trusts share a number of attractions (Mikitin 1995):

• Independent of government intervention– the government must agree to trust establishment and conditions attached that ensure its independence and its commitment to trust objectives.

• Facilitate donor co-ordination– allows easy pooling of resources.

• Leverage additional funds– by offering a ready-made mechanism for investing. • Increased flexibility in disbursement– while project funds are generally admin-

istered according to work plans and strict time-tables, disbursement from trusts can be adjusted.

• Long-term horizons– permanent trusts are popular where there is a need to establish long-term sources of finance, and move away from donors normal short-term project lifecycle.

• Local ownership– easily designed to achieve a high level of participation in operations.

• Local empowerment – local involvement in the trust may strengthen organisa- tional and management skills of communities who apply for funds.

Trusts also have drawbacks. Not only are they complex, but where trusts are permanent they require a large initial investment to yield relatively small resources for distribution. For an off-shore trust a minimum of US$5 million is normally sought. If a multilateral is managing the funds, then the minimum is thought to be closer to US$10 million, to take account of lower investment returns. Where conservation needs are pressing, funds may yield greater benefits by being used immediately, rather than invested through a trust and disbursed over the long-term.

Box 4: Critical Ecosystems Partnership – trust funds to pool conservation finance

Launched in February 2001, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership represents a collaborative effort by Conservation International, the World Bank and GEF to generate finance for biodiversity conservation in critical ecosystems around the world. Each founding institution has pledged $25 million over the next five years, and additional finance is being sought from other donors to reach a capi- talisation of US$150 million.

The fund aims to provide grant finance to local communities, NGOs, the private sector and other civil society groups to protect biodiversity. Finance will be proj- ect-based and used to support training, natural resource planning, local dialogues with extractive industries, conflict resolution, consensus building, capacity build- ing, and the facilitation of partnerships with the private sector in protected areas. Initially, the fund will focus on hotspots (i.e. highly threatened regions where about 60% of all terrestrial species diversity are found on only 1.4% of the planet’s surface) in Madagascar, West Africa, and the Tropical Andes. Every year 5 additional critical ecosystems will be added to the list of recipients.

To provide strategic guidance, a Donor Council oversees the fund. This Council will review and authorise proposals for funding. Decision-making is supported by the production of “ecosystem profiles” for each potential recipient location. Profiles outline the current status of biodiversity threats, existing initiatives to counter this threat and how the proposed investment will add value. Funds will be disbursed through four approaches, depending on local conditions:

1) The consortium approach – involving participation of a range of civil society groups in a hotspot location.

2) Competitive requests for proposals based on an advertised theme.

3) Private foundation approach where particular implementers are sought for their expertise and matching objectives.

4) Small grants approach.

In terms of the breakdown in responsibilities Conservation International serves as the Fund manager, will develop guidance for investments and will supervise regional hotspot alliances created through the Fund. The GEF and World Bank will facilitate technical and information links through their national offices and Fund projects. The Fund aims to add value to World Bank and GEF projects by being agile, flexible and responsive to emergencies. In addition to the Fund sponsors, the Biodiversity Conservation Information System – a consortium of 12 international conservation organisations – will provide information and commu- nications support.

Source: Conservation International (2001)

Direct negotiations are a less sophisticated mechanism for transferring funds for biodiversity protection, but are especially effective where uncertainties are significant. Traditionally, funds are tied to conservation by forest stewards, be they government agencies, local communities or NGOs. As local community participation has gained recognition through the 1990s, conservation projects have expanded their ambit to incorporate local developmental goals. Integrated conservation and development projects are used for paying for biodiversity

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conservation in several of the cases reviewed. Most notably conservation and development projects have been an overarching theme in International Cooperative Biodiversity Group initiatives in Suriname, Nigeria, Cameroon, Vietnam and Laos. Box 5 describes the Suriname example.

Box 5: Conservation and development through the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group in Suriname

Suriname’s International Cooperative Biodiversity Group was established in 1993 to explore plant biodiversity for commercial drug development. The project is one of several sponsored by the US National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and USAID (recently replaced by the US Department of Agriculture). A key feature of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group programmes is that they are designed to comply with the CBD principles. In particular, they aim to provide incentives for biodiversity conservation and to maximise the benefits from bioprospecting to local communities, whilst promot- ing drug development. The initiative represents a break with conventional private bioprospecting deals which are estimated to return an average 0.0001% of profits from plant-based drug development to local communities.

The initiative is unusual for the variety of institutions collaborating in drug development. While it is co-ordinated by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; research is implemented by a number of players, including:

Conservation International-Suriname, the Saramake Marron tribe (about 17,000 people), the publicly owned pharmaceutical company (Bedrijf Geneesmiddelen Voorziening Suriname), the Missouri Botanical Gardens and the multinational Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

Given each participant’s skills and investment in the project, a range of agree- ments has been developed setting out responsibilities and the sharing of benefits. These agreements may be split into two groups: those that deal with longer-term benefit sharing in the event of a drug being developed; and those that deal with immediate payments for biodiversity access, biodiversity protec- tion and ethnobotanical information. The overarching framework for the project is that of an integrated conservation and development project.

Long-term benefit sharing

A Grant Research Agreement signed with the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group covers longer-term benefit-sharing. It deals with ownership, licensing and royalty allocation once a drug is developed. The agreement formalises the right to joint ownership over a patent between the local commu- nities that contributed raw materials and ethnobotanical information. It also sets out Bristol-Myers Squibb’s right to exclusive access to raw materials for a set period.

The allocation of royalties between Bristol-Myers Squibb, Suriname and other stakeholders will depend on the drug developed and the partners’ relative contributions. Where the drug is based on ethnobotanical information, 50% of funds go to a Forest People’s Fund and 30% to a range of conservation-based institutions (e.g. the Foundation for Nature Preservation in Suriname; the Forest Service and Conservation International-Suriname). The remaining 20% is split

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