Projects

German development organisations have assembled a wealth of know-how on the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural and biological diversity. Since the mid-1980s German development cooperation has implemented some 450 projects involving nature conservation, rural development, fisheries and forest management. 10 to 15 new projects are commenced each year. GTZ alone is currently involved in around 80 projects and programmes dealing with these issues in more than 35 countries. Some of these are carried out jointly with other organisations, such as the KfW development bank, the German Development Service (DED) and international NGOs. GTZ thus contributes to implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and to the reduction of poverty.

Innovative ideas and new strategies are developed, particularly in the areas of nature conservation and agrobiodiversity. This involves close cooperation between GTZ’s projects in the fields of rural development, nature conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources, as well as those dealing with food security and agricultural research. This enables challenges arising at the interface of conservation and development cooperation to be converted into concrete strategies.

Changes often need to be made to framework conditions, such as laws and implementing provisions, and to political structures, in order to ensure that biological diversity is secured in the long term. GTZ therefore supports pilot projects in this area that are carried out by partner organisations. In these pilot projects new approaches to individual aspects of the Convention on Biological Diversity are worked out and tested. The experience gained feeds into policy consultancy and contributes to improved implementation of the Convention. Priority areas for these measures are biological security, access to genetic resources and equitable benefit sharing (ABS) and traditional knowledge. Almost 30 such pilot measures have been implemented and more than half of these have already been completed.