The Conference of Parties (COP), by its decision 5/CP.5, recognized the need to identify the priority capacity-building needs related to participation in systematic observation. The COP invited the secretariat of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), in consultation with relevant regional and international bodies, including the Global Environment Facility (GEF), to organize regional workshops on this issue. The GCOS secretariat, with the support of the GEF, subsequently organized a regional workshop programme and conducted regional workshops and follow-up meetings in ten regions of the world. The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), at its twenty-third session, noted that the regional workshop programme will be completed in early 2006 (FCCC/SBSTA/2005/10, chapter IX). It invited the GCOS secretariat, in cooperation with the GCOS Regional Workshop Advisory Committee, to report on the results of the programme to the SBSTA at its twenty-fifth session. This document contains the above-mentioned report from the GCOS secretariat. In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, this submission is reproduced* in the language in which it was received and without formal editing.