Latest Resources

ACB attends 25th SBSTTA meeting in Kenya

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is participating in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 25th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in Nairobi, Kenya, 15–19 October 2023, represented by advocacy and research officer Sabrina Masinjila. (She is pictured above, sitting next to Barbara Ntambirweki –  Ugandan lawyer and researcher working […]

World Food Day 2023: Working towards a just food system for all

This World Food Day, marked annually on 16 October, we’re connecting the dots between agriculture, our wider food system and the multidimensional crises we face, which includes climate change. The industrialised food system, from agricultural inputs and production to consumption, transport and storage, feeds climate change, and climate change, in turn, impacts the food system, […]

Just transition and adaptation in the food system: national policy dialogue

The National policy dialogue on a just transition and adaptation in the food system took place in Ekurhuleni, from 20-22 September. Organisations representing the labour movement, smallholder farmers, farm workers, labour tenants, informal traders, waste reclaimers, food and land justice organisations, civil society, and policymakers came together to discuss building a coordinated understanding and policy […]

Seed harmonisation in Eastern and Southern Africa

Failures, corporate occupation, and the rise of digitalised seed trade: dire implications for farmer managed seed and food systems in Africa Regional seed policy harmonisation processes on seed and plant variety protection (PVP) legislation have been underway for the past 15 years on the African continent. These have taken place under the auspices of various […]

Cultivating diversity for a just agroecological transition in Africa

The inextricable link between agricultural biodiversity, agroecology, climate change, and biodiversity In this briefing, Cultivating diversity for a just agroecological transition in Africa: the inextricable link between agricultural biodiversity, agroecology, climate change, and biodiversity, we highlight the pivotal role of agricultural biodiversity, in particular, crop diversity and its interrelatedness and dependence on farmer managed seed […]

Assessment of support for agroecology in South Africa’s policy landscape

by Dr Stephen Greenberg (Veuillez cliquer ici pour le français) In March 2023, civil society organisations and farmers met with the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to share views on agroecology and to promote a call from 58 organisations for a national agroecology strategy. In support of the process, the ACB […]

Agroecology advocacy meeting held in Suurbraak

In February, together with the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) and Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the ACB hosted a meeting in Suurbraak, Western Cape, bringing together a network of farmer and civil society organisations to discuss a strategy to approach government to support agroecology. Through the lens of advocacy, and a focus on the challenges facing […]

ACB at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15)

The 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) was held in Montreal, Canada, 7-19 December. Governments from around the world came together to work towards an agreement on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 to halt and reverse nature loss. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted during COP 15 […]

End of 2022 wishes from the ACB

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always […]

The Africa we want?

A NEO-IMPERIALIST FOOD REGIME REINFORCED BY AGENDA 2063, THE UNFCCC, AND THE CBD Closely linked to this work, is a five part series of interconnected briefing papers which reflect on the inability of both the UNFCCC and the CBD, to address collapsing socio-ecological systems and rather, its complicity in re-embedding geopolitical inequality, debt, and underdevelopment […]