April 2017: Meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Executive Secretary Cristiana Paşca Palmer said her top priority is to raise the profile and political visibility of the Convention while working cooperatively with other entities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The UN Biodiversity Conference held in December 2016 convened under the theme of mainstreaming biodiversity into the agriculture, fisheries, forestry and tourism sectors. The mainstreaming theme will extend into the 2018 Conference of the Parties (COP), to be held in Egypt, where the Convention will focus on mainstreaming biodiversity in energy and mining, infrastructure, manufacturing and processing, and health.

In addition, the CBD Secretariat along with the UN Environment – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) published the report of a workshop, titled ‘Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Development and the Sustainable Development Goals: sharing and developing workable solutions,’ held at the margins of the 2016 UN Biodiversity Conference.

According to the report, the workshop took stock of existing biodiversity mainstreaming initiatives by UN agencies, national governments and other stakeholders. An analysis by SwedBio on the links between the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the SDGs highlighted many complementarities among the two frameworks. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) presented results of a review of 60 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). It showed that the NBSAPs, if fully implemented, would catalyze progress in national food security, water security, livelihoods, economic growth, disaster risk reduction, health, gender and climate resilience, among other goal areas. The review also revealed that while many actions focus on planning and research, the drivers of biodiversity loss, such as wildlife trade and pollution, are not well addressed, and major mainstreaming opportunities are missed.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat presented findings from a systematic review of final evaluations of 66 biodiversity mainstreaming projects it funded since 2004. The GEF study showed, inter alia, that: spatial and land-use planning projects consistently reported impacts at scale; the most successful projects blended work on protected areas and surrounding production landscapes; and policy work in the agriculture and forestry sector did not show cause-and-effect relationships between proposed policy changes and biodiversity benefits on the ground.

Countries also reported on their mainstreaming successes and challenges at the workshop, with Costa Rica, Mexico and South Africa detailing specific experiences and projects. In another case study, six sub-Saharan African countries (Malawi, Namibia, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) shared their successes as members of a community of practice that uses a peer-to-peer learning approach and that was supported through the NBSAPs 2.0 Initiative. The Initiative established an African Leadership Group for Biodiversity Mainstreaming. The Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) presented best practices on mainstreaming mapped against five dimensions developed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The workshop report details a number of other country and stakeholder case studies. It concludes with a discussion of common barriers to mainstreaming and a list of solutions. [CBD Press Release] [IISD RS Coverage of 2016 UN Biodiversity Conference] [NSBAP Workshop] [Report on Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Development and the Sustainable Development Goals: Sharing and Developing Workable Solutions]