Strengthening women’s leadership and ensuring gender equality in biodiversity decision-making is not only a matter of rights and equity — it is essential to achieving more effective, resilient and sustainable conservation outcomes. Discussions related to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) highlight that while gender equality is increasingly recognized as important, it remains an area often overlooked in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and their implementation. While progress has been made, recent findings emerging from the mid-term review of the CBD Gender Plan of Action continue to call for stronger integration.

Since October 2024, seven countries have been advancing change in this arena through the initiative “Accelerating Systemic Change for Gender Equality and Biodiversity Conservation through NBSAPs.” Together with implementing partners NBSAP Accelerator Partnership, UNEP, UNDP and the Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT, and with support from the Government of Canada, these countries set their sights on strengthening biodiversity and gender equality outcomes through the revision and implementation of gender-responsive NBSAP processes. Antigua & Barbuda, Comoros, Costa Rica, Eswatini, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Togo, are now reporting on actions and results, which showcase impacts on procedures and systems that have led to institutional change.

On International Women’s Day, the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership is celebrating this progress and highlighting the importance of a continued path forward in gender-responsive NBSAPs.

The project’s design reflects its ambition. As outlined in the Project Snapshot, it aims to apply a gender transformative, systems-thinking approach to NBSAPs and improve biodiversity and gender equality outcomes. Following its launch in October 2024, implementation began across the seven countries in March 2025, with core activities concluding in March 2026 followed by a structured wrap-up phase.

Across participating countries, efforts focused on:

• Enhancing institutional capacity on gender equality and systems thinking for biodiversity conservation
• Integrating gender-responsive approaches into biodiversity policies and practices
• Increasing the participation and leadership of women through multi-stakeholder workshops
• Co-creating country-specific solutions for gender-responsive biodiversity action
• Supporting global learning and knowledge exchange

These objectives and strategies were designed to directly support the inclusive revision of the NBSAPs in alignment with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, especially Target 22 and Target 23, and to operationalize the CBD Gender Plan of Action 2023-2030 by embedding gender equality within national biodiversity systems and decision-making processes.

The CBD Gender Plan of Action is the primary instrument guiding Parties to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework in a gender-responsive manner. Within the framework, this commitment is formalised in Target 23, which calls for gender equality in implementation by 2030 — including equal rights to land and natural resources, and the full, equitable, meaningful, and informed participation and leadership of women and girls at all levels of biodiversity decision-making.

The Gender Plan of Action guides Parties toward this objective through three key outcomes:

• Equal opportunity and capacity for women and girls to contribute to the Convention’s objectives.
• Biodiversity policies and programmes that address diverse perspectives, needs, and rights.
• Enabling conditions that support gender-responsive implementation of the Framework.

A gender-responsive NBSAP:

• Integrates gender analysis into biodiversity planning
• Strengthens women’s participation and leadership
• Aligns biodiversity and gender policy objectives
• Promotes institutional coordination across sectors
• Embeds accountability mechanisms into reporting processes

Across Antigua & Barbuda, Comoros, Costa Rica, Eswatini, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Togo, Country Core Teams have been established to drive this integration. Multi-stakeholder workshops, systems mapping exercises and national consultations with various actors, including women from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LCs), have supported the identification of gender-responsive biodiversity solutions.

Importantly, four participating countries contributed to the mid-term review of the CBD Gender Plan of Action, using project-developed guidance tools.

While global frameworks and policy guidance set the direction, systemic change ultimately takes root at national and local levels. Across participating countries, gender-responsive approaches have moved from principle to practice. The following stories illustrate how countries are translating commitments into active solutions.

Tajikistan convened multi-stakeholder dialogues to identify gaps and opportunities at the intersection of gender and biodiversity. Led by national counterparts and supported through project partners, dialogues brought together government institutions, technical experts and civil society actors to strengthen coordination and identify practical solutions.

The dialogue process contributed to inter-ministerial engagement, inclusion in NBSAP updating processes, effective inputs to the mid-term review of the CBD Gender Plan of Action, and strengthened capacity across national institutions.

On a local level, the project highlighted the history and knowledge of women related to biodiversity, including the sustainable use of natural resources for livelihoods. These practices are being elevated and upheld, including the creation and use of sustainable dyes, seed saving, the use and conservation of traditional agrobiodiversity, and local production, including of natural cosmetics, herbal teas, oils, soaps, bee products and food items.

Eswatini conducted a national workshop as well as community consultations and coordination actions to explore the gender-biodiversity nexus and inform its NBSAP process. Through a whole-of-society approach, actors from environmental institutions, gender stakeholders, and community representatives are co-creating solutions that reflect national priorities.

The result of these actions has been a shift in biodiversity planning that incorporates gender considerations from the outset. This gender-responsive biodiversity action strengthens outcomes for both people and nature.

In Thailand, a series of meetings strengthened national understanding of the linkages between biodiversity conservation and gender equality. The meetings created space for dialogue across sectors and supported the development of a Gender Action Plan aligned with Thailand’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2023-2027).

Key recommendations that culminated from Thailand’s meetings were promoting women’s leadership in environmental management, ensuring inclusive participation in land and resource management, establishing community-level funding mechanisms, strengthening engagement in decision-making processes with government agencies, and integrating gender considerations into NBSAP operational plans.

In Togo, a least developed country with one of the fastest-reforming economies for women’s economic empowerment, gender and biodiversity are increasingly linked in policy and practice. National multi-sectoral bodies ensured that women’s groups were directly involved in the review of the country’s NBSAP, creating space for diverse voices to contribute to biodiversity planning and decision-making.

Reflecting on the importance of this integration, Togo’s CBD Focal Point shared in this interview from 2025 that gender equality must be understood as a foundational development principle: “If we accept that gender contributes to the socio-cultural construction of masculine and feminine roles and of relations between women and men, then gender equality in my view corresponds to a principle that aims to guarantee the same rights and to give the same opportunities and advantages to women and men in participating in decision-making on economic and social development policies. In the field of biodiversity, this principle enables women and men to enjoy the same rights in terms of access to resources and the distribution of benefits arising from their use.” -Dr Amah ATUTONU, Epse KUEVIAKOE, Director of Forest Resources at Togo’s Ministry of the Environment and Forest Resources and the National Focal Point for the CBD

While challenges remain in fully integrating gender considerations into biodiversity conservation, Togo’s efforts have garnered international recognition. At the Women’s Forum during the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP16), Togo was acknowledged as a champion of gender-inclusive biodiversity action.

This progress is underpinned by sustained political commitment and institutional reform. Dr Amah Atutonu shared: “Promoting gender equality in biodiversity policies and actions requires political commitment… In our country, Togo, gender is recognised as one of the guiding principles for boosting socio-economic development. The country has drawn up a guide to gender mainstreaming in all development projects, while encouraging gender-sensitive budgeting in all sectoral planning.”

The project’s impact lies in institutional change. As a result of project activities, gender considerations are increasingly embedded in NBSAP revision processes, and ministries responsible for the environment, planning and gender are collaborating more systematically. Countries are developing practical solution pathways linked to financing and implementation mechanisms that are gender-responsive and include sectors from across the whole of society and government. Likewise, establishing the Global (BRIDGE) Help Desk and facilitation toolkits has created sustaining technical support structures and resource materials that extend beyond the life of the project.

The project will deliver a comprehensive synthesis report by 15 March 2026. A wrap-up phase will continue through July 2026, culminating in a global close-out workshop in Thailand in June. This phase will focus on finalising country outputs, sharing global lessons, aligning dissemination with evolving CBD gender pathways, and supporting knowledge transfer across Parties.

At the closing workshop in June, Core Country Teams will focus on:

• Exchanging experiences and challenges
• Strengthening peer-to-peer learning and networking
• Supporting future success by sharing and refining plans
• Identifying concrete opportunities to match needs with relevant support
• Generating key takeaways and lessons on co-identifying gender-responsive solutions

The structured wrap-up approach safeguards country ownership while maximising global learning and long-term sustainability.

On this International Women’s Day, the message is clear: advancing biodiversity goals requires systemic attention to gender equality. When gender-responsive approaches become embedded in national systems, biodiversity action becomes more inclusive, effective and durable.

Learn more about gender-responsive NBSAPs and strengthening implementation — and join us in accelerating inclusive biodiversity action worldwide.