We are halfway through the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015. It is clear that, in order to achieve it, structural changes are needed in the functioning of our economies and forms of production and in development planning that manage to recouple the three dimensions of sustainable development, recognizing their interdependence and the transformative potential that emerges from combining the social, environmental and economic dimensions simultaneously (Harris and others, 2023).
As a contribution to the dialogue to promote the implementation of the new Kunming-Montreal World Biological Diversity Framework (MMDB-KM), approved in December 2022 as a roadmap to 2030, ECLAC and the European Union organized a series of virtual meetings to discuss how to carry out transformational changes that promote regional development, re-coupling the three dimensions of sustainability, with special emphasis on the environmental part, but without minimizing the social and economic dimensions.
During the opening of the dialogues, Jeannette Sánchez, director of the DRN highlighted that “from multiple sectors and perspectives it has been emphasized that profound changes are required: for example, the report on the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda, the commitments of the agencies of United Nations to support the transformation of food systems; the network of United Nations Economists, within the new Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, at ECLAC we have proposed the great drive for sustainability that requires an alignment of investments and industrial, technological, commercial, environmental and social policies that support certain strategic sectors and ILPES promotes the design and implementation of comprehensive and transformative public policies and planning.”
Sustainable development planning and agriculture have a key role in the development of the transformative changes committed to in the MMDB-KM that move us away from the multiple concomitant environmental, climatic, social and economic crises. Such crises can be addressed with comprehensive multidimensional benefit tools such as cross-sectoral biodiversity mainstreaming and governance for pro-biodiversity transformative change (Alvarado, Tambutti and Rankovic 2022; Catacora-Vargas et al. 2022). Latin America and the Caribbean is a repository of practices for the integration of biodiversity in land management carried out with the inclusive and active participation of various actors, which have overcome barriers of working in silos between sectors and actors. Many of these cases are local initiatives, but there are also examples at the subnational and national scales.
76 people participated in the dialogues, 48 women and 28 men, from twelve Latin American and Caribbean countries affiliated with the environmental, agricultural, fishing, planning and finance sectors, national and subnational governments, the United Nations, Cooperation Agencies and academia. .
The dialogues were aimed at:
- Strengthen the catalytic role of development planning from the framework of governance, policies and monitoring for the implementation of instruments and/or actions that promote the transformative changes proposed by the MMDB-KM.
- Identify and discuss the main challenges, needs, good practices and opportunities for the wide early multi-stakeholder implementation of the MMDB-KM, including the integration of biodiversity and innovative governance as tools for the sustainable management of terrestrial and marine resources.
- Collect and generate key data and information for the development of future tools on the integration of biodiversity in development policies and innovative governance, promoting a regional vision on key issues and processes for the implementation of the MMDB-KM under a focus of ” the whole government” and “the whole society”.
At the end of the third dialogue, the president of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Hesiquio Benítez, observed: “The dialogues opened the conversation to transcend protected areas and species in danger, which have been the main themes of the Convention for decades. With the focus of planning for development and sustainable agriculture, these meetings open the dialogue to new dimensions related to the inclusion of new actors and decision-making in sectors that affect biodiversity.” Other participants mentioned (Santiago Lawrence and Alice Williner)
ECLAC and Expertise France will shortly publish a report with the conclusions of the three dialogues, so that it can promote the recognition of shared and specific priorities and promote joint actions.
