Agroecology in NBSAPs and National Targets: Five Steps from Ambition to Implementation

Agroecology offers a holistic response to the climate, biodiversity, and food security crises – crises to which food systems both contribute and from which they simultaneously suffer. Grounded in diversity and resilience, agroecology helps manage agroecosystems sustainably, diversify livelihoods, and enable social equity and governance.

Published on the sidelines of the UN Biodiversity Conference COP17 in Armenia, this policy brief analyzes 108 revised National Biodiversity Strategies and Actions Plans (NBSAPs) and 2,509 national targets submitted by countries under the Convention on Biological Diversity. It uses a five-tier assessment framework based on 14 agroecology intervention areas and traces to what extent each intervention area is integrated in an NBSAP.

The brief finds that most NBSAPs reference agroecology, but far fewer have plans for operationalizing aspirations in practice. Agroecology is largely treated as a farming technique rather than a level for agrifood systems transformation. Many NBSAPs do not assign institutional and/or financial resources for realizing aspirational agroecology commitments or policy actions.

The brief also provides policymakers, civil society, farmers, Indigenous and local communities, and the private and financial sector with several concrete suggestions to help them strengthen the consideration of agroecology in NBSAPs.

This brief was prepared in collaboration with Biovision, the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, and WWF International.