ARNOLD LETSHOLO

Botswana will host the inaugural Africa Biodiversity Summit at the Gaborone International Convention Center (GICC) on the 5^th of November 2025.

In preparation for this, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) the past week trained members of the media on the subject of biodiversity, as well as sensitized them on the journey the African continent undertook from the Maputo Convention of 2003.

Welcoming the media and other participants to the event, the Liaison Officer for First Africa’s Biodiversity Summit, Dr Ceril Taolo highlighted that the event, themed; ‘Leveraging biodiversity for prosperity’, has three objectives.

These include: providing political direction and support for Africa’s biodiversity priorities, including Africa’s engagement in global negotiations; strengthening partnerships for effective implementation of continental and international biodiversity frameworks, as well as mobilizing financial and technical resources to support biodiversity conservation efforts across the continent.

The summit will have three segments, namely; the summit, the Ministerial segment and technical segment. The summit segment covers opening ceremony, where there will be statements by heads of state, key messages from development partners and Civil Society adoption of the Africa Biodiversity Summit Declaration.

“The ministerial segment will comprise ministerial dialogues and panel discussions and the adoption of the draft declaration for consideration by the summit,” Dr Taolo said.

The technical segment will focus on key thematic areas. First is the Biodiversity Conservation for Socio-economic Development, which will address sustainable management of both terrestrial and marine biodiversity, including natural capital accounting, development of bio-economy, and mitigation of human-wildlife conflict to support inclusive economic growth.

Secondly, there is strengthening biodiversity governance; which will examine the legal and policy frameworks at national, regional and global levels, and explore integrated approaches to addressing the interlinked challenges of climate change, desertification, and biodiversity loss.

Emphasis will be placed on inclusive stakeholder engagement, particularly indigenous peoples and local communities, in implementing National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets.

“Discussions will focus on innovative financing mechanisms, Public Private Partnership (PPP), and capacity building to operationalize initiatives such as the Africa Biodiversity Fund (ABF)”.

Other areas include the promotion of bio-economy development, fair access and benefit sharing from genetic resources, and leveraging biodiversity- based trade for sustainable livelihoods,” he said, illustrating the third technical segment; of Enhancing Financial Flows for Biodiversity Management.

Under the fourth technical session, ‘Africa’s Global Engagement on Biodiversity’, the summit will serve as a platform to coordinate Africa’s positions in preparation for key global biodiversity meetings, including CITES, CMS, UNOC-14 and the Bamako Convention.

It will also provide political direction based on AMCEN’s recommendations.

Interestingly, the first Conference of Parties to the African Convention on Natural Resources of 2003 will also take place on the sidelines of the summit. The convention, which is a revision of the Algiers Convention of 1968, came into force in 2016.

“The Convention Is yet to become fully operational, and parties will convene to adopt its rules of procedure, set the Parties’ contributions to the convention budget, decide on the Secretariat hosting and functions among other administrative matters. Botswana is yet to sign or ratify the convention,” he said.

Dr Taolo said Africa Keystone Protected Area Partnership is an African led transformative conservation initiative to safeguard 162 of the most critical or vital protected areas across 33 African countries.

The Okavango Delta, the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park have been included in the list of African protected areas under the above-mentioned initiative.

“The initiative has been funded to the tune of USD1.2 billion; intended to increase financing for Africa’s biodiversity, mobilize protected area financing through innovative financing mechanisms such as carbon markets debt for nature swaps and enhance capacity for conservation management, job creation, and empowering local institutions for effective management of biodiversity among others,” he explained.

The launch for the partnership will be held on the sidelines of the summit.     

(C) TPA2025