Every two years, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) holds a Conference of Parties (COP) when delegates from governments, corporations, industry, and NGOs come together to discuss how to support global action on biodiversity.
CBD COP16 was held in Cali, Colombia, and the opportunity for us to support our partners to attend and facilitate their engagement was a key focus of our Capacity strand.
Synchronicity Earth enabled the participation of 19 grassroots partners from 10 countries (Brazil, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea), providing travel grants to 13 organisations but also tailored support such as enabling access to the Conference through Synchronicity Earth badges, guidance on registering themselves as observers to CBD meetings, assistance in the design and organisation of side events, and access to speaker roles on events relevant to their work.
Our team co-hosted three events on the sides of COP16, primarily to champion voices that are typically under-represented, such as young people and Indigenous Peoples; we also collaborated on four additional side events on platforming youth and amplifying freshwater conservation.