Abstract
Over the past three decades, most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have developed national policies, legislations, plans, and institutions that are geared towards biodiversity conservation and management. However, evidently lacking in these instruments is the mechanisms for the generation, processing and sharing of biodiversity information. This study reviews the current biodiversity policy and institutional landscapes, and their impacts on the generation, processing, sharing, and use of biodiversity information for decision-making in SSA. We employed an integrated approach for data collection including literature review, telephone interviews and questionnaire administration. Findings show that biodiversity information has primarily been mobilized in an ad hoc manner through project surveys and academic research endeavours. Currently, majority of SSA countries still do not have standalone biodiversity policies that could prioritize biodiversity information and provide specific mechanisms and structures for the mobilization, processing and sharing of biodiversity information. Rather, efforts have focused on mainstreaming strategies and action plans into related sector policies and planning activities with potential impacts on biodiversity information. This move has not been entirely successful in sustaining efforts on biodiversity data and information generation, utilization and sharing. While the relevance of biodiversity information for national development is acknowledged by stakeholders, there are still major obstacles including: the lack of funding for data mobilization, weak institutional capacity, lack of individual competencies, and inadequate training on techniques for mobilizing biodiversity data and information. Advocating for value-added and demand-driven biodiversity information has the potential to garner policy support and legitimacy to reach the level of importance required for investment, capacity development and specialised institutions for biodiversity conservation in SSA. Key words: Biodiversity, information, policies, institutions, sub-Saharan Africa.
Highlights
Biodiversity provides a fundamental basis for economic livelihood and societal wellbeing in Africa (Cadman et al, 2010)
In the first part of this section, drawing from various documentations including literature, reports, plans and policies, we examined the policies and institutions that have emerged in response to the growing recognition of the importance of biodiversity and the alarming rate of biodiversity loss around the world
Based on the responses from the online survey conducted, the second part involves the analysis of the potential impact of existing policies, legislations and regulations on the processes that facilitate the generation of biodiversity information as well as the factors that affect the management of biodiversity information in sub-Saharan African countries
Summary
Biodiversity provides a fundamental basis for economic livelihood and societal wellbeing in Africa (Cadman et al, 2010). It is vital for the health of the earth‟s ecosystem that survives the current and future generation. The current rate of biodiversity loss is a major concern due to its negative implication for human survival on earth. The growing concern for biodiversity loss and its adverse implications on humanity has attracted global attention leading to the proliferation of conventions, protocols and declarations which are aimed at encouraging countries to take serious actions to curb the imminent threat of biodiversity decline. The impact of these strategies and interventions on curtailing biodiversity loss remains elusive as the state of the world‟s biodiversity continues to change rapidly (Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 2010; Butchart et al, 2010)
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