Representing the Latin American Network, IICA joins organizations worldwide in an alliance to promote the bioeconomy as a global paradigm for sustainable development.
Nairobi, 4 November 2024 (IICA) – As the representative of the Latin American Bioeconomy Network, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) has joined key global organizations in forming a global alliance of major players in the global bioeconomy.
The decision to create this alliance was made at the conclusion of the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2024, held in Nairobi, Kenya, where top leaders, experts, policymakers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and other key bioeconomy stakeholders gathered.
The commitment to join forces is based on the premise that institutions and organizations promoting the bioeconomy at global, regional, and national levels must collaborate. The global bioeconomy partnership will bring together representatives from the public sector, private sector, academia, civil society, and international organizations, fostering greater collaboration and synergies to strengthen the role of the bioeconomy as a sustainable development paradigm worldwide.
Some of the institutions joining the alliance, in addition to IICA, include FAO, the European Space Agency, the Global University Alliance, the International Bioeconomy Forum, the World Economic Forum, and the Global Bioeconomy Alliance.
The Latin American Bioeconomy Network is thus positioned as a global reference. Through the Network—with its Technical and Executive Secretariat managed by IICA’s Innovation and Bioeconomy Program — more than 60 regional and national institutions from 10 Latin American countries work together.
Their shared objectives include building guidelines for the bioeconomy, designing strategies and public policies, establishing metrics to measure the contribution and sustainability of bioeconomies, creating support services for the incubation, acceleration, and scaling of bio-enterprises, fostering science, technology, and innovation for the bioeconomy, and positioning the region in key bioeconomy spaces globally.
Transition to green economies
“One Planet – Sustainable Bioeconomy Solutions for Global Challenges” was the theme of the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2024, which brought over 500 participants from five continents to Kenya's capital, plus 3,000 additional virtual participants.
The summit underscored the bioeconomy’s critical role in decarbonization and the shift towards green economies, both rural and urban, that are less dependent on fossil fuels. Discussions also covered strategies to promote the bioeconomy as a tool for strengthening food systems, reversing biodiversity loss, tackling health challenges, and leveraging innovation to create new economic opportunities, especially in job creation for young people.
The Global Bioeconomy Summit was organized by the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB), the world’s most recognized organization in the field.
In addition to supporting event organization, IICA co-hosted a main plenary session and three workshops. Furthermore, IICA, representing the Latin American Bioeconomy Network, joined the Global Partnership Initiative launched to advance the global bioeconomy.
“To fully harness the bioeconomy’s potential, we need to accelerate our efforts and include sectors currently absent from the discussion. Finance and industry representatives should be here, working alongside us. The bioeconomy must be a development paradigm, and to achieve this, we need all the pieces in place, collaborating toward shared goals. While regions, countries, and territories have distinct bioeconomies, many of our challenges and opportunities are shared. We must work together and synergize,” said Hugo Chavarría, IICA’s Manager of Innovation and Bioeconomy and Executive Secretary of the Latin American Bioeconomy Network, in Nairobi.
The workshops covered topics from the role of bioeconomy in the global agenda to the main challenges of bio-enterprises, focusing on the lack of adequate training for farmers, the difficulty in applying available knowledge, and the need to develop technologies suited to local realities, especially for the sustainable use of biodiversity.
Discussions also addressed the potential of bioeconomy to enhance efficiency and sustainability in biomass production and utilization, emphasizing the importance of public-private cooperation.
IICA highlighted bioeconomy’s transformative potential for agriculture, agri-food systems, and rural areas.
“Thanks to the results we’re already seeing,” concluded Chavarría, “and the discussions we’ve had in recent years, bioeconomy is now central to many of our regional meetings and proposals. For example, bioeconomy has been included in proposals that our policymakers have presented at the UN Food Systems Summit and at ministerial meetings on agriculture, environment, and science and technology.
Bioeconomy is also part of our cooperation proposals with countries like Germany and the United States, and it will certainly play a central role at the COP 16 on Biodiversity in Cali, Colombia. The only option is to work together and in synergy. That is the commitment of IICA and the Latin American Bioeconomy Network.”
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int