On 7 February 2026, Bishoftu, Ethiopia, hosted the fourth national stakeholder workshop under the BIODEV2030 project. The event brought together senior officials from key government bodies, including the Ethiopia Biodiversity Institute, Ethiopian Wildlife Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Planning, and Environment Protection Authority, alongside the national CBD Focal Point and a diverse array of multi-stakeholders. The workshop provided a critical platform to translate high-level policy commitments into actionable, integrated plans for biodiversity conservation and development.
In addition to government representatives, NGO directors and managers of multilateral-funded flagship programs participated, pledging to adopt BIODEV2030’s tools and approaches. Discussions emphasized that sustainable development is a collective endeavor and that conservation cannot succeed in isolation. Participants highlighted BIODEV2030, facilitated by IUCN, as an effective framework to align nature conservation with national economic objectives, offering practical methodologies for integrated planning.
The workshop also referenced Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative as a strong demonstration of national policy commitment to systemic, long-term environmental change. However, evidence from national biodiversity assessments highlighted accelerating biodiversity loss, mainly due to land use change. Stakeholders identified that the central challenge lies not in development itself but in designing and incentivizing it to support sustainability.
Participants praised the BIODEV2030 methodology for enabling meaningful multistakeholder engagement and providing a concrete pathway to implement Ethiopia’s revised National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), which emphasizes spatial planning and ecosystem restoration in line with global targets. The strategic relevance of Ethiopia’s agroecological policies and its draft agroforestry policy was recognized as foundational to this integrated approach.
A key conclusion of the workshop was the necessity to embed biodiversity considerations into the design of all development projects, ensuring that economic incentives reward sustainable practices. Linking BIODEV2030 findings directly to Ethiopia’s NBSAP and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was considered essential for achieving national biodiversity objectives.
While recognizing that building nature-positive economies requires sustained effort, the workshop encouraged accelerated action in sustainable production and enhanced transboundary collaboration to manage regional resources effectively. The convening reinforced a shared national commitment to translate policy into practice, positioning collaborative, evidence-based planning as central to Ethiopia’s sustainable future.
National program managers, including coordinators of the Green Legacy Initiative and managers of World Bank-funded programs such as the Sustainable Land Management Program (SLMP) and Climate Action through Land Management (CALM), along with the NBSAP coordinator, contributed to panel discussions and committed to sustaining BIODEV2030’s efforts to mainstream biodiversity in development planning.
Implemented by IUCN and WWF-France, coordinated by Expertise France, and funded by AFD, BIODEV2030 promotes an innovative approach to biodiversity mainstreaming based on scientific evidence and multi-stakeholder dialogue. The project aims to integrate biodiversity across sectors and support changes in production practices, steering Ethiopia toward a nature-positive development trajectory.
