Finance and Indigenous rights top Africans’ agenda as biodiversity summit opens in Yerevan
The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity summit in Yerevan is addressing the slow progress toward global conservation targets. African nations, including megadiverse countries like the DRC and South Africa, are struggling to meet biodiversity action deadlines due to funding and capacity gaps.
Why it matters
The failure to meet these targets threatens global ecosystem stability and the long-term economic and environmental health of regions critical to biodiversity.
As the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s 17th summit opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on Oct. 19, what’s at stake for Africa?
In 2022, parties signed the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework , agreeing to maintain, restore, and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems and end human-induced extinction of threatened species; to sustainable use of biodiversity; to fair and equitable sharing of both monetary and non-monetary benefits derived from genetic resources; and to establish adequate means to implement the framework — including finance, scientific cooperation and building capacity of all parties.
The summit, which runs through Oct. 30, marks the halfway point to the deadlines for a first set of 23 action-oriented global targets .
The progress report is not encouraging: Fewer than half of countries say they are on track to meet their self-designed biodiversity targets.
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