Yerevan, Armenia, October 2026 – At the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP17), the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership launched a new tool to help countries move from planning to action. The Accelerants Framework: A systems approach to NBSAP implementation gives governments and their partners a shared, practical guide for identifying what is slowing implementation and where targeted support can unlock progress. It organizes twenty accelerants under five pathways, and was released in a limited print edition at COP17. A digital version is available at the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership website, with an official UNEP publication link to follow.

Accelerants are the conditions, capacities, approaches, and enabling factors that help countries implement biodiversity commitments more effectively and efficiently. Implementation is rarely held back by a single problem. The framework identifies common problems and pathways to navigate them. 

The framework helps countries:

• Understand the barriers and strengths shaping implementation in their own context
• Prioritize a manageable set of accelerants and leverage points, rather than trying to do everything faster
• Plan strategic actions, responsibilities, financing, and sequencing
• Learn and adapt by tracking whether the conditions for implementation are improving

It does not prescribe a single model, and countries do not need a new assessment to begin. It is intended primarily for national governments and NBSAP coordinators, and is also relevant to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and youth organizations, civil society, the private sector, development agencies, and donors.

The twenty accelerants are organized under five interconnected pathways:

1. Implementation roadmap: Translating ambition into coordinated delivery through clear priorities, sequencing, and operational planning.
2. Participation and inclusion: Strengthening the social foundations of implementation through inclusive governance, locally led action, gender equality, and partnerships.
3. Integration and alignment: Embedding biodiversity across sectors, policies, and planning processes so that decisions pull in the same direction.
4. Enabling environment: Building the institutional, political, financial, and accountability conditions that sustain implementation.
5. Systemic transformation: Supporting the longer-term shifts needed to address the drivers of biodiversity loss and advance nature-positive development.

The pathways are not a checklist or a linear sequence, and no country is expected to strengthen all twenty accelerants at once. Countries choose the entry points that fit their circumstances.

A thematic analysis of global and regional sources, including CBD assessments, NBSAP reviews, Global Review findings, regional capacity needs assessments, and country submissions identified the five domains where implementation challenges most often arise, and the conditions that consistently support progress. More than sixty practitioners and experts from governments, international organizations, civil society, academia, and development partners reviewed the draft through interviews, workshops, surveys, and technical reviews. The framework is built on qualitative evidence and practitioner experience. It identifies recurring patterns rather than causal links, and offers a practical tool that will keep evolving as countries share what works.

The CBD’s Global Report concluded that unless implementation accelerates rapidly, the 2030 targets will not be achieved. For every global target, fewer than half of reporting Parties consider their related national targets on track. 

The Accelerants Framework is an extension of the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership’s solutions-focused work. Since launching, the Accelerator has built a network of 140 members and a country-led pipeline of 163 requests for support from 44 countries through its MatchMaking Mechanism. It now hosts 23 facilitators across five regions, bringing in-country expertise to coordinate institutions and build momentum from within national systems. 

The Accelerants Framework was featured on Acceleration Day, 27 October, at the GBF Pavilion. The limited edition is available online at https://nbsapaccelerator.org/accelerants-framework/.  A free, six-week online course on the Framework, offered by the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership on the Learning for Nature platform, will run from 1 February to 14 March 2027:  https://www.learningfornature.org/en/courses/the-accelerants-framework-a-systems-approach-to-nbsap-implementation/