CGIAR Statement at UN Biodiversity Conference High-level Segment

CGIAR is the world’s largest public agriculture research and development partnership including 15 international agricultural research centers, with 9,000 staff, active in 120 countries, working through partnerships with over 3,000 organizations. 

We work at the nexus of food systems, environment and health. Our 11 international genebanks conserve over 720,000 accessions of more than 3,000 plant species from all over the world and make that diversity available for research and innovation for food and agriculture under the framework of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. 

Many of our research programs create and share non-monetary benefits from the use of genetic resources and digital sequence information in the form of publicly available goods and services including new plant varieties and animal breeds, digital sequence information (DSI) databases, and tools to facilitate use of that information. The CGIAR research portfolio is committed to 13 of the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

From the first report on the implementation of that Framework, it is clear that more effort is still needed on several fronts. 

• More work on food systems transformationis essential to achieve many of the goals and targets. 
• More needs to be done to enhance the conservation and the monitoring of genetic diversity, and to integrate genetic diversity into restoration plans. 
• We need to promote non-monetary benefit-sharing, including through the DSI Multilateral Mechanism, while safeguarding open access to scientific data in the genomic era.
• We need to redouble our efforts to ensure policy decisions are informed by scientific evidence. 

CGIAR will continue to work with international, national and locally based partners to support their efforts implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework.