Improving policy and institutional frameworks to safeguard biodiversity
For over 30 years, UNEP has played a leading role in advancing the international agenda on biodiversity, and has collaborated with the GEF on these issues since its establishment in 1991.
Strengthening policy and building capacity
Over the last 15 years, UNEP has provided support to over 35 partner countries in realising the potential of agricultural biodiversity to improve access to nutrition, increase food security, strengthen resilience to climate change and improve well-being in rural communities. These projects have strengthened policy and legislative frameworks across sectors, using a holistic approach to integrate challenges and considerations across agriculture, environment, public health and education. We have built capacity, generated knowledge, promoted best practice, and integrated biodiversity conservation into both sectoral and institutional practices, strategies and policies. As an example, our Greening the Cocoa Industry initiative is conserving biodiversity, providing supply chain stability and increasing income for smallholder farmers by changing production and business practices in over 10 per cent of the world’s cocoa production landscapes.
Promoting fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from biodiversity
UNEP has been instrumental in promoting fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources. We help deliver the goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development by facilitating key institutional frameworks such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-Sharing. We support countries to implement the legal, administrative and policy frameworks needed to enable Access and Benefit Sharing. For example, we have assisted the Ethiopian government in the creation of an Access and Benefit Sharing regime for the fair use and conservation of medicinal plants. In India, we are supporting 10 states to establish state and local level biodiversity databases and biodiversity management committees; these are critical to provide communities a leading role in conserving and sharing the benefits of their local flora and fauna.
Developing best practice in the field of biosafety
UNEP has served as the lead agency in the field of biosafety, ensuring that any of the potential risks (such as cross-contamination and damage to biodiversity and human health) of genetically modified organisms are mitigated. We have helped over 120 countries create national biosafety frameworks, as well as assist more than 70 to implement those frameworks, backed by scientific tools for assessing and managing technical, environmental and socio-economic risks. For example, we have facilitated emergency response plans for biological threats and delivered the safe trial and release of game-changing crop varieties in countries such as Bangladesh, Ghana, India and Nigeria.
