Fostering expert dialogue to support decision-making at the intersection of biodiversity and climate change is a priority for BfN’s international team. Recently the team joined forces with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) and dedicated a hybrid-format workshop to opportunities for more coherent policy-making.

The workshop featured a rich collection of case studies from four continents, which presented experiences in advancing policy coherence across various scales – from sub-national to global – as well as across different sectors. Participants also examined examples of supporting financial instruments and approaches to aligning efforts across institutions. Building on these insights, discussions centred on key success factors, potential for synergies, and typical barriers, deriving that:

• Success factors for policy coherence include, among others, clear and strong mandates for relevant institutions, backed by adequate human resources and capacity, equitable cooperation among line ministries, reliable access to funding, and shared conceptual visions across sectors.
• Entry points for enhancing biodiversity-climate policy coherence are, for example, establishing coordination mechanisms, promoting synergies in implementation, streamlining monitoring and reporting systems, identifying co-benefits, and raising awareness of the costs of inaction.
• Concerning the international level, to mitigate misalignments, it is essential to coordinate timelines and processes among the Rio Conventions as well as strengthen collaboration between their science-policy bodies. 

The workshop’s findings and recommendations will be compiled into a discussion paper that will be submitted to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in time for the upcoming technical information exchange among the Rio Convention Secretariats. The document will also be made available online to encourage direct action at the policy level.