African Centre for Technology Studies, KE

The theme of the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Session of the GBF was “Using Biodiversity to Strengthen Livelihoods”. The Forum explored ways and means of integrating poverty alleviation considerations into local, national and regional actions aimed at conserving, using sustainably and sharing equitably the benefits of biodiversity.

For centuries, genetic resources not protected by Intellectual Property Rights were collected and used without any regulation. They were a free good available for everyone. Huge profits were made but never shared with the custodians of biological diversity. "Access to genetic resources" underscores the importance of informed national approaches to enforce access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing provisions of the Convention on biological diversity.