By Doh James Sonkey
The Minister of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development, Hele Pierre has described as timely, “updating national biodiversity strategies and action plans, monitoring and protecting the biodiversity through sub regional dialogue in the Francophone African Countries, as there is need for sustainable development and policy instruments to be implemented in multilateral environmental agreements.’’
The Minister was speaking last September 3, 2025 in Yaounde at the opening of a three-day dialogue jointly organised by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UNEP, the Central African Forest Commission, COMIFAC and others with the support of the state of Cameroon. It is expected that the dialogue provides a platform for countries to share good practices, face challenges and propose solutions, enhance national capacities for implementation of the monitoring framework and for national reporting while taking into consideration the putting in place the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in the region.
Hele Pierre stressed that, ‘‘this framework is a roadmap to stop and inverse the loss of biodiversity in the world by 2030.
The Executive Secretary of COMIFAC, Astrid Schomaker explained that ‘‘the dialogue is organised in response to decisions 16/1, 16/31, 16/32 and 16/35. In its decision 16/1, the Conference of the Parties urged Parties that had not yet done so to revise or update their national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs), as requested in decision 15/6, as soon as possible. In decision 16/32, the Conference of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to convene regional and/or sub-regional dialogues, taking into consideration the experiences and lessons learned from the previous regional dialogues. In decision 16/31, the Conference of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to support inclusive and participatory processes to facilitate the operationalisation of the monitoring framework by facilitating capacity building and development activities related to the implementation of the monitoring framework at the national level.’’
He added that ‘‘in decision 16/35, the Conference of the Parties encouraged Parties to raise awareness of their ongoing processes for the update or revision of NBSAPs across various national policy and planning processes, sustainable development strategies and policy instruments relevant to the implementation of other multilateral environmental agreements.’’