The ABS Capacity Development Initiative aims to contribute to poverty reduction, food security, technology transfer, social development including equity and rights, and biodiversity conservation through implementing the Nagoya Protocol (NP) on ABS and the third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in its entirety. Established in 2006, the ABS Capacity Development Initiative is implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and funded by the governments of Germany, Norway and Denmark, the Institut de la Francophonie pour le développement durable (AfD), and the European Union (EU). The concept of Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) is high on the agenda worldwide. The outcome document of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda has several references on ABS. With the growing general awareness on ABS and the increasing number of countries ratifying the Nagoya Protocol, the number of requests to support national ABS implementation i