Context:
In September 2000, the leaders of over 180 governments placed sustainable development at the heart of the global agenda when the United Nations Millennium Summit adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), setting clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015. Achieving the MDGs is now a central organizing principle for sustainable development efforts for the UN system and its members, and for many key donor institutions. The linkages between conserving biodiversity and achieving the MDGs, however, have not yet been adequately articulated. If this key linkage is not better understood and accepted – at conceptual, political -- and practical, operational levels – there exists a risk that both the MDGs and biodiversity conservation objectives may be compromised.

Over the past year, 2002, a series of significant events marked a turning point for the relationship between the MDGs and biodiversity on the international agenda.

• In April, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), recognizing that biodiversity underpins sustainable development, established 2010 as the target year for halting the loss of biodiversity.
• In May, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan set out the five ‘WEHAB’ priorities (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture, and Biodiversity and ecosystem management) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which recognized the critical importance of biodiversity in delivering services in each of the other sectors.
• In July, the United Nations launched a comprehensive strategy on the MDGs based on four pillars, including an important analytical effort, the ‘UN Millennium Project’, the purpose of which is to propose the best strategies for meeting the MDGs.
• In September, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation consolidated and reiterated many internationally agreed goals relating to sustainable development, including biodiversity, and called for concerted action from all sectors of society to meet these goals. WSSD specifically called for significantly reducing biodiversity loss by 2010.

The message should be clear: biodiversity – and the ecosystem services that diverse, healthy natural biological systems provide – are fundamental to the future of humankind. Without biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and benefit sharing, lasting achievement of the MDGs will not be possible. Understanding and articulating how biodiversity relates to these goals, and how biodiversity conservation can contribute to achieving them, is one of the greatest challenges facing the global community.

Objectives of the Meeting:
This meeting is intended to:

1. Build on the momentum from Johannesburg by reflecting further on the “B” in WEHAB and how to ensure wider recognition of the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services to all sectors.
2. Explore and articulate the links between biodiversity and the Millennium Development Goals in order to identify ways that biodiversity conservation can help communities and countries achieve the MDGs.
3. Identify a series of options for action in the short- and medium- term for decision-makers and other stakeholders in both developed and developing countries.

Through the achievement of these aims, the meeting intends to make a significant contribution to the research and analysis being undertaken by the UN Millennium Project, and to begin catalyzing a more systematic and sustained dialogue between the international development and biodiversity communities concerning the integration of biodiversity conservation goals and the MDGs.

This will be the first of two meetings in London dealing with the links between biodiversity and sustainable development. The second meeting, which is being planned for 21-23 May 2003, is intended to lead to an improved understanding of what the 2010 target of significantly reducing biodiversity loss actually means in real terms, and how we will know in the future whether we have achieved it or not. The results of the first meeting will be one of several inputs to the second meeting.

Approach:
The aims of the meeting will be achieved through a combination of plenary presentations and working group discussions. The plenary presentations will provide an overview of the Millennium Development Goals and will brief participants on the existing biodiversity mandates arising from the CBD and WSSD meetings, and the WEHAB framework. The working group discussions will explore certain key issues in more depth looking at biodiversity links to the various Millennium Development Goals and how these links can contribute to the achievement of the MDGs. The working language of the meeting will be English.

Key Themes:
The following issues are suggested for in-depth discussion during the meeting. Each of these issues will be the subject of a brief discussion paper which will help to orient the working groups, setting out the issues and identifying areas for discussion and follow-up.

Key Themes (to be addressed by working groups):

Theme 1: Poverty / Hunger and Biodiversity
Focusing on:
Millennium Development Goal 1

• How do loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services contribute to problems of poverty and hunger?
• How does the sustainable management of biodiversity contribute to solving problems of poverty and hunger?
• What are the priorities and most promising strategies for maximising the contributions that biodiversity and ecosystem services can make to achieving the MDG on poverty and hunger?

Theme 2: Health and Biodiversity
Focusing on:
Millennium Development Goals 4, 5, and 6

• How do loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services contribute to or exacerbate health problems?
• How does the sustainable management of biodiversity contribute to solving these problems?
• What are the priorities for maximising the contributions that biodiversity and ecosystem services can make to achieving the MDGs on health?

Theme 3: Water, Sanitation, Urban Poverty and Biodiversity
Focusing on:
Millennium Development Goal 7

• How do loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services contribute to challenges in environmental sustainability, water, sanitation, and the quality of life of slum dwellers?
• How does the sustainable management of biodiversity contribute to solving challenges in environmental sustainability, water, sanitation, and the quality of life of slum dwellers?
• What are the priorities for maximising the contributions that biodiversity and ecosystem services can make to achieving the MDGs on environmental sustainability, water, sanitation, and the quality of life of slum dwellers?

Theme 4: Means of Implementation: Policy, Trade, Finance, Capacity-Building and Partnerships
Focusing on:
Millennium Development Goal 8

• How do loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services contribute to challenges related to ‘biodiversity and globalization,’ including trade, intellectual property rights, benefit sharing, innovative financing mechanisms & integration of biodiversity into financial sectors?
• How do loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services contribute to challenges in debt-ridden countries, or those facing particular challenges (e.g. SIDS, LDCs)?
• What kinds of new partnerships (technical, technological, economic, financial, political) between developing and developed countries are needed to achieve synergies between biodiversity conservation and the MDGs?

Each working group should also consider aspects of their deliberations that are directly relevant to Goal 2 on ‘Achieving Universal Primary Education’ and to Goal 3 on ‘Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women’. Focal persons in each of the working groups will raise these issues for discussion. In addition, each working group should consider aspects relevant to Goal 7 on ‘Ensuring Environmental Sustainability’, and in particular, the integration of sustainable practices into all sectors.

Outputs:
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) will produce a summary report to be distributed to the 25,000 Earth Negotiation Bulletin subscribers around the world, and posted on the IISD website at www.iisda.ca. This report and other workshop materials and summaries will then be used to develop a series of information papers focused on the interests and needs of forthcoming international meetings such as the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) meeting, the subsequent CBD meeting on the multi-year programme of work (MYPOW), and the CBD Conference of the Parties in 2004 -- as well as the upcoming Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) meetings and the World Parks Congress. All materials will be used to provide substantive input to the work of the UN Millennium Project.

Outcomes:
The meeting will serve to advise key multilateral, bilateral, and non-governmental organizations involved in the meeting on future actions that they can take to support action at the local, national and international levels. The overall aim of the meeting is to accelerate global progress towards building strong linkages between the biodiversity conservation agenda and the achievement of the MDGs.

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