Regional Biotrade Southeast Asia – UNCTAD

Situation

UNCTAD has exemplarily manifested its commitment to biodiversity e.g, by the “Trade and Biodiversity Webinar I – sustainable guidelines for biodiversity” in September 2020 where the SECO / Helvetas Biotrade Project served as an illustration and with the “6th Biotrade Congress: “Trade and biodiversity for a positive future” in June 2023. The event was hosted by the Union of Ethical Bio-trade (UEBT), co-facilitated by Helvetas and concluded – among others - that “Providing tools and promoting certification schemes enable the private sector to sustainably manage and measure biodiversity”. This study analyses the relevance of multistakeholder initiatives working on Biotrade, smallholder food systems and agricultural commodities at global level, with an in-depth view on the Mekong area and Peru, and how they can serve to mitigate biodiversity loss and foster biodiversity recovery. The research provides evidence for the linkages between standards and biodiversity and confirms broadly the role of voluntary sustainability standards to mitigate biodiversity loss and to foster biodiversity recovery. In order to provide complementarity to these studies the current piece of research focuses on multi-stakeholder initiatives since not all standards are owned by MSIs and since MSIs typically have additional functions such as knowledge sharing and matchmaking among members. Led by Helvetas, colleagues of the HAFL Hugo P. Cecchini Institute contribute to the study.