The 2023 Global Development Conference theme is ‘Biodiversity and Sustainable Development'. Mainstreaming biodiversity is no longer a luxury but an urgency. It is crucial to integrate actions or policies related to biodiversity into broader development processes or policies such as those aimed at poverty reduction, or tackling climate change.
The conference proposes to address the following thematic blocks:
- Alternative, nature-based solutions for sustainability challenges (including perspectives from indigenous people)
- From ecosystem valuation (methodological approaches) and political commitments to implementation of the new GBF
- Mainstreaming biodiversity and scaling up mainstreaming
- Biodiversity loss, poverty and global inequality – links and trade-offs
- Financing nature and biodiversity – domestic, international, private sector
- Biodiversity governance – local and international
- Technology and Innovation – links to biodiversity and ecosystem preservation
- Interdisciplinary research & capacity building – including diverse knowledge systems
A Scientific Committee has been formed with leading figures in the field to help identify plenary speakers, validate conference themes and promote the event in their communities. They will also participate in the final stage of the selection of the shortlisted papers and session proposals received through the open calls. Some of the Scientific Committee members may of course also be speakers themselves at the conference. An Organizing Committee has also been constituted with representatives of the conference co- hosts who will play a key role in spearheading the event.
The conference is set to take place in Quito, Ecuador on October 31 - November 1, 2023, in collaboration with Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and Future Earth.