The fourth meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on the Post-2020 global biodiversity framework has been underway from June 21 to June 26 here in Nairobi, at the UN Complex Gigiri. OEWG is a multi-stakeholder dialogue that brings together governments, academia, youth groups, women’s groups, indigenous peoples and local communities, business leaders and other leaders under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Biological diversity can be described as life on earth at all levels, including species, genetic, ecosystems and global biodiversity. It also encompasses cultural processes that sustain life.
This gathering seeks to further negotiations on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which will include goals and targets to be implemented in the next decade. Issues to be negotiated included but are not limited to resource mobilisation, sustainable use of natural resources, access and benefit sharing, restoration and area based conservation.
One of the organizations that is part and parcel of this gathering is African CSOs Biodiversity Alliance, a membership alliance of African CSOs which draws memberships from youth, academia, national NGOs and indigenous peoples and local communities to name a few. ACBA was founded in 2020 to provide a platform for African organizations to work together for the better working of CSOs in ensuring positive policy processes in the continent.
ACBA’s priority pillars are Area-Based conservation, Sustainable Use, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Resource Mobilization and Business Engagement. If we can expound on the Business Engagement point, it is clear that a lot of businesses do harm to biodiversity and human rights in their daily operations and there is need to have a framework that will hold them accountable. There is need for policy and regulations to govern businesses and investments so that they do not harm biodiversity at large. There is however a gap in accountability channels since private sector is not signatory to the Global Biodiversity Framework and therefore can’t be tasked with monitoring itself.
Furthermore, businesses fall under different categories in terms of size and blanket policies cannot be used to measure impacts. Small and medium sized entities cannot be looked at under the same microscope as huge multinational businesses for example, and policies and regulations around them should be different. There is also a challenge of national boundaries which means that business regulation would have to be transboundary.
As the OEWG 4 discusses biodiversity issues and as the dialogues move to the next steps, this is a crucial pillar that should not be forgotten. That Public policies and regulations should be put in place so that all business, economic activities and investments do not harm biodiversity.