As Ghana advances the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), national institutions are increasingly required to demonstrate progress through credible, spatially explicit data. Yet for many stakeholders, biodiversity information has historically been fragmented across institutions, difficult to analyze spatially, and challenging to translate into policy-relevant evidence, particularly for national action and reporting under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Through the UN Biodiversity Lab (UNBL) and its Essential Life Support Area (ELSA) Integrated Spatial Planning Tool, Ghanaian institutions, led by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MEST)  and a national NGO, Conservation Alliance, in partnership with the UNDP Country Office and UNBL team, are beginning to overcome these challenges, strengthening national ownership of biodiversity data while enhancing monitoring, planning, and reporting processes linked to the  National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), the primary policy instrument for delivery of the CBD and KMGBF at the national level, and the Seventh National Report (7NR) to CBD on status of biodiversity in the country.

From fragmented datasets to spatial decision support tools

Participants from government agencies, research institutions, and civil society described a common experience prior to using UNBL: biodiversity data existed, but often lacked coherence, consistency, or accessibility for decision-making.

Yaw Osei-Owusu, a member of Ghana’s National Biodiversity Steering Committee, described the shift succinctly:

“UNBL is the gateway for effective and efficient development planning and budgetary processes at both the national and subnational levels in Ghana.”
 — Yaw Osei-Owusu, National Biodiversity Steering Committee, Ghana

For government and other spatial planning institutions, the value of using UNBL lies in its ability to consolidate diverse datasets in a single, interpretable platform. For the purposes of supporting national action around the KMGBF, MEST and Conservation Alliance, have created a secure national workspace on UNBL for national collaboration and used this to consolidate national datasets relevant to GBF implementation as well as monitoring and reporting. These national datasets can now be visualized alongside over 1,000 global data layers at the click of a button, enabling technical experts and decision-makers to identify the most useful data for national planning and reporting needs, tag them by relevant target or policy, and perform further analytics.

“I am very impressed with the various datasets, especially the forest cover and land use datasets, which are very relevant to spatial planning.”
 — Mohammed Munzamil, Senior GIS Officer, Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority, Ghana

By enabling users to visualise biodiversity priorities alongside land-use pressures, infrastructure, and administrative boundaries, UNBL helped institutions move from static datasets to actionable spatial insight.