Our Contribution
to Impact

“The work of the CGIAR Environment and Biodiversity Impact Platform is crucial to ensure that we stay within the environmental boundaries at both planetary and regional levels while preserving and restoring ecosystem services.”

Cargele Masso

Director, CGIAR Environment and Biodiversity Impact Platform

Agriculture plays a major role in the loss of forests and biodiversity, which in turn affects the quality of diets and nutrition. Approximately one-third of the world’s soils are degraded, and agriculture is responsible for around 70% of global freshwater withdrawals. Additionally, it significantly contributes to pollution in terrestrial and water ecosystems.

The CGIAR Environment and Biodiversity Impact Platform is collaborating with strategic partners to develop practical and policy solutions to tackle these challenges. In its first year, the platform has brought together communities of practice, strengthening the research capabilities of CGIAR and its close partners. It has also expanded the reach of innovative solutions and policy tools. Key performance indicators, metrics, and shared approaches are being jointly developed and tracked to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. These assessments also inform the prioritization of investments.

A significant advantage of the platform is its ability to synthesize and analyze data from diverse sources, identify knowledge gaps and research needs, and develop effective solutions. This has been instrumental in guiding CGIAR’s contribution to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December 2022, as well as its subsequent advisory role. The platform is also actively involved in the Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) on Agroecology of FAO.

The platform’s objective is to ensure that we strike effective trade-offs, enabling us to achieve the collective targets of other CGIAR impact areas aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, while always operating within the planetary and regional environmental limits. The process of developing an inclusive roadmap for the platform has begun, building upon a strong theory of change, impact pathways, and a results plan. These elements are being co-developed with key stakeholders from food systems and beyond. This is a critical step in the right direction towards achieving the impact area targets by 2030.