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Project country: Colombia |
| Sector: Climate policy |
| Expert Partner: Kew Gardens |
Building on existing partnerships in science and innovation between the UK and Colombia, this skill-share sought to increase the Humboldt Institute’s capacity to leverage relationships between academia and industry to advance bioeconomy initiatives in the country.
Colombia has been working towards the integration of a bioeconomy policy framework as an element of its sustainability and green growth policies. Leveraging the bioeconomy has been seen as a way to sustainably use nature-based solutions as a tool to generate opportunities for Colombian communities while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Through this process regulatory bottlenecks have been identified, prompting the decision to explore learning and international best practises in the field of bioeconomy.
The expert team supported the Humboldt Institute through capacity-building workshops and the development of policy recommendations on regulatory bottlenecks in the bioeconomy.
Capacity building workshops took place in Colombia across three cities, Bogotá, Medellín and Cali, and covered topics such as negotiating Intellectual Property (IP) and finding products to match markets, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Nagoya Protocol (NP), how to navigate international access and benefit sharing (ABS), The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and how this can affect bioeconomy, and finally how to build partnerships and trust. The expert team also met with several key stakeholders working on different aspects of the bioeconomy to share their experience.
Following the in-country visit, the expert team used the valuable insights collected and the deeper understanding of the local context to develop recommendations on how to navigate and overcome regulatory bottlenecks in their efforts to advance bioeconomy initiatives in the country.
The expert team praised the flexibility and engagement of all stakeholders to discuss the topic and in-country partners felt encouraged by the expert’s support and the strengthened partnerships which came as a result of the skill-share. The skill-share also provided a forum to discuss future scientific collaborations in the bioeconomy space.
