Yesterday, a United Nations nature summit in Colombia agreed to create a fund to share the benefits of digitally sequenced genetic data from animals and plants with the communities from which they come.

This data, largely coming from species found in poor countries, is notably used in medicines and cosmetics which can bring billions to their developers.

Little or no benefit from the data – often downloaded from freely accessible online databases – ever benefits the communities that discovered a species’ utility in the first place.

Photo: AFP

The issue had been a bone of contention during the 16th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity which opened in Cali almost two weeks ago.

The previous summit, COP15 in Montreal, agreed to the creation of a “multilateral mechanism” to share the benefits of digitally sequenced genetic information (DSI), “including a global fund”.

However, in Cali, negotiators debated for almost two weeks fundamental questions such as: who pays, how much, into which fund and to whom the money should go.

After a last minute compromise, the member countries of the convention agreed on the creation of a “Cali Fund” for the equitable sharing of the benefits of the DSI.

The agreement states that users who benefit commercially from DSI “should contribute a portion of their profits or revenues to the global fund.”

Those whose income exceeds a certain income threshold should contribute 1 percent of profits or 0.1 percent of revenue, the document says.

The non-binding agreement lists targeted sectors, including producers of pharmaceuticals, food and health supplements, cosmetics, biotechnology and agri-food.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had urged delegates at the start of the negotiations to approve a mechanism to govern the use of DSI so that benefits could be shared equitably.

“Developing countries are being plundered,” he said.

“The digitized DNA of biodiversity is the basis of scientific discoveries and economic growth, but developing countries are not benefiting equitably from this progress, despite being home to extraordinary wealth,” he said .

Scheduled to end Friday, the summit lasted many overtime hours as delegates argued over the details of the text.

Many delegates had already left the conference by the time the agreement was adopted, rushing to catch planes home.