Africa-Europe Science and Innovation Summit

Science (IPBES and IPCC) and Policy (the global post-2020 biodiversity framework and the EU Biodiversity Strategy) clearly underline that biodiversity loss can only be successfully addressed if transformative changes will be initiated, accelerated, and up-scaled. There is however hardly any knowledge on potentials and challenges arising from transitions focused on biodiversity. System-level change of this kind starts through social innovation, for example, regulations, incentives, local and participatory processes, and through the introduction of new technologies, new processes of production, or consumer products, which change how socio-technical and socio-ecological systems operate and impact their environment. Such transformative change must decrease the impacts of indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, which are in turn, underpinned by societal values and behaviours. Indirect drivers of biodiversity loss are understood here as: Production and consumption patterns, human population dynamics and trends (including their footprints), trade, technological innovations, local to global governance (including financing). Research and innovation can enable these transformative changes to happen and initiate processes, behaviour changes and actions which are transforming the way we impact biodiversity. Socio-economic and multidisciplinary research, including on the role of education, will develop knowledge and tools to understand the role of transformative change for biodiversity policy making, address the indirect drivers for biodiversity loss, and accelerate biodiversity-relevant transformative changes in our society.
Cooperation between Africa and Europe will promote knowledge and practices exchange as required to attain regional and global policies, specifically the ones directly on actions towards halting biodiversity loss is a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15) but also to other SDGs strongly linked to it. Keeping ecosystems resilient and safeguarding our planet’s biodiversity is fundamental to poverty eradication, human health and wellbeing. Biodiversity is essential not only to the proper functioning of Earth systems, it is also key to the delivery of ecosystem services that are crucial to human dignity and wellbeing.These biodiversity-dependant ecosystem services include the provision of potable water, food and fibres, soil fertility, maintenance of the genetic databank of biodiversity, climate regulation, and recreational and aesthetic values among others. Biodiversity and cultural diversity are intricately linked. A diverse world gives us the flexibility to adapt to change, including climate change. Biodiversity therefore underpins most SDGs and its loss constitutes a threat to both security and peace and shall be a central point of cooperation among Africa and Europe.