On December 04 – 08, 2017 the annual Meeting of States-Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC) is taking place in Geneva.

Representatives of States-Parties to the Convention, relevant international institutions and NGOs attend the event.

The Ukrainian delegation is led by Amb. Yurii Klymenko, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Office and other International Organizations in Geneva and includes officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Presidential Administration, National Academies of Sciences, Medical Sciences and Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine.

Participants are discussing ways to further strengthen the BWC, deepen international cooperation, including in the context of providing technical assistance to States Parties to the Convention to identify and combat threats of pandemic nature and use the results of biological research for peaceful purposes, as well as the issue of establishing an intersessional programme of work, as to which States Parties did not manage to reach consensus during the Eighth BWC Review Conference (December 2016).

Permanent Representative of Ukraine in his statement during the Meeting stressed upon the important role played by the BWC in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Having drawn attention to the working paper of the Meeting titled “Awareness-raising, education and outreach: recent developments”, submitted by Ukraine, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Japan, he called for comprehensive strengthening of the Convention’s regime, including through its further universalization and enhancement of relevant international cooperation, as well as underscored the results of the regional workshop for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia "Implications of developments in science and technology for the BWC", which took place in the city of Kyiv on September 21 – 22, 2017.

In the framework of the Meeting, Ukraine conducted jointly with UK the Side event entitled “Biosecurity education: opportunities to learn from current progress and new initiatives”, where the experience of Ukraine in this area, inter alia, has been presented as an example to be followed by other countries. The Side event generated heightened interest of the BWC Member States.