The Bio-Bridge Initiative was established by the Government of the Republic of Korea at the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2014 to enhance technical and scientific cooperation and technology transfer under the Convention, with a view to supporting the effective implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets, as well as the updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans (decision XII/2/B2). The Initiative is designed to complement existing programmes and mechanisms under the Convention and its Protocols.
In their Gangwon Declaration on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development, the Ministers of Environment and other heads of delegation who met on 15 to 16 October 2014 in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, recognized the need for enhanced technical and scientific cooperation among countries to implement the objectives of the Convention and welcomed, among other initiatives, the Bio-Bridge Initiative on technical and scientific cooperation for the accelerated implementation of the Pyeongchang Roadmap 2020. The initial phase of the Initiative focused on establishing institutional structures, developing tools and mechanisms to support technical and scientific cooperation, developing a the Bio-Bridge Action Plan 2017-2020, and supporting a few pilot technical and scientific cooperation projects.
The core goal of the Bio-Bridge Initiative is the promotion and facilitation of technical and scientific cooperation. This will be achieved through various tools and mechanisms including helpdesk services, an interactive web platform, meetings and roundtables and a small seed funding facility.
In the context of the Convention and its Protocols, technical and scientific cooperation is defined as a process whereby two or more countries or institutions pursue their individual or collective biodiversity-related goals through cooperative actions and/or exchange of scientific knowledge, expertise, data, resources, technologies and technical know-how.
As envisaged in Article 18 of the Convention, technical and scientific cooperation encompasses human resources development, institutional building, joint research programmes, joint ventures for development of technologies, technology transfer, and other elements.
Technical and scientific cooperation is one of the various means of enabling Parties to implement the Convention and its Protocols in addition to capacity-building, information sharing, training and other means.
Technical and scientific cooperation helps foster synergies, maximizes the utilization of existing resources, facilitates access to a wide range of knowledge, experiences and lessons learned, and often results in greater impact of the implementation efforts.
Other benefits include: