NBSAPs Target 17: Strengthen biosafety and distribute the benefits of biotechnology
GBF-aligned NBSAPS to ensure just, sustainable futures for all life to thrive: the role of African civil society
Target 17: Strengthen biosafety and distribute the benefits of biotechnology FACTSHEET 9
The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is committed to dismantling inequalities and resisting corporate industrial expansion in Africa’s food and agriculture systems.
PO Box 29170, Melville 2109, Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)11 486-1156
Series conceptualised by ACB director Mariam Mayet
Researched and written by Mariam Mayet
Editorial input by ACB consultant Linzi Lewis
Design and layout: Katerina Sonntagova, Moss and Sea Studio
Cover art: Sun Rays by Jess Hooft, https://www.jesshooft-art.com/
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The ACB gratefully acknowledges the financial support of several donors, though the views expressed may not necessarily reflect the views of our donors.
June 2026
Acronyms
AHTEG Ad hoc technical expert group
AI Artificial intelligence
CBD (United Nations) Convention on Biological Diversity
COP Conference of the Parties
CPB Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
CP-MOP Meeting of the COP serving as the meeting of the Parties to the CPB
CRISPR Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats
EGDs Engineered gene drives
GM Genetic modification
IPLCs Indigenous Peoples and local communities
KM–GBF Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
LMOs Living modified organisms
NBSAPs National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans
SBI Subsidiary Body for Implementation
SBSTTA Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice
Synbio Synthetic biology
TAP Thematic action plan
About this paper
For over three decades, the fair, equitable, and precautionary governance of modern biotechnology has been central to the debates and decisions at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). While first-generation genetic modification (GM) (transgenic technologies) are regulated nationally under existing national biosafety frameworks largely based on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB), the governance of emerging GM technologies—including synthetic biology and engineered gene drives (EGDs)—remains unresolved and highly contested (Masinjila & Mayet, 2023).1 These developments, enabled by advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)/ribonucleic acid (RNA) synthesis and sequencing, genome editing, and artificial intelligence (AI), are expanding the scope and scale of interventions in both agricultural and natural ecological systems.
Against this backdrop, Target 17 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM–GBF) represents an important, albeit limited, attempt to elevate biosafety as a stand-alone global priority. This marks a departure from the Aichi Targets, which did not explicitly address biosafety. However, following protracted negotiations, the final formulation of Target 17 falls short of establishing the robust, forward-looking governance needed to respond to increasingly complex and high-risk technological trajectories (Masinjila & Mayet, 2023). In particular, it does not sufficiently embed key elements, such as precautionary thresholds, horizon scanning, and mechanisms to address uncertainty, irreversibility, and transboundary impacts.
This paper outlines the current state of discussions under the CBD and its Protocols on emerging biotechnologies—particularly synthetic biology and EGDs—and assesses their implications for implementing Target 17. It highlights recent decisions, including the development of voluntary guidance materials and thematic action plans, and argues that while these represent incremental progress, they remain inadequate to ensure effective biosafety governance. Emerging experiences in Africa—including gene-drive-related research in Tanzania and the termination of Target Malaria activities in Burkina Faso—underscore that biosafety is not merely a technical question, but a deeply political issue shaped by power, inequality, and contested visions of development and innovation.
1 Synthetic biology is a further development and new dimension of modern biotechnology that combines science, technology, and engineering to facilitate and accelerate the understanding, design, redesign, manufacture and/or modification of genetic materials, living organisms, and biological systems (COP13, Decision XIII/17): https://www.cbd. int/doc/c/9a5d/35f3/b57a2e851bdc7c26c6d0c07c/cop-13-dec-17-en.pdf
Target 17 does not operate in isolation. It is closely linked to other elements of the KM–GBF, including Target 13 on benefit-sharing and Target 19 on resource mobilisation, as well as broader questions of implementation, monitoring, and accountability. In practice, the governance of biotechnology sits at the intersection of biodiversity conservation, the political economy of innovation, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs). As analyses, such as ACB’s work on the financialisation of malaria, demonstrate, technological interventions are increasingly embedded within externally driven funding architectures and product-centred innovation pathways that may not align with national priorities or public interest outcomes (Mentz-Lagrange & Swanepoel, 2022). This raises urgent questions about who defines research agendas, who benefits from technological deployment, and who bears the risks—particularly in African contexts.
These dynamics have direct implications for national implementation through National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). As Parties revise and operationalise their NBSAPs in line with the KM–GBF, biosafety governance will need to be integrated across multiple policy domains, including agriculture, health, environment, and science and innovation. The current reliance on voluntary guidance, coupled with uneven regulatory capacity, creates significant challenges for countries seeking to translate Target 17 into concrete national measures. This includes decisions on whether and how to establish precautionary thresholds, strengthen independent risk assessment capacity, integrate socioeconomic considerations, and ensure sovereignty over biological data, research trajectories, and technological choices.
In this context, the period leading up to COP17 represents a critical, time-bound opportunity to shape the trajectory of biosafety governance under Target 17. African civil society should engage proactively and strategically with national governments and regional processes to ensure that implementation moves beyond procedural compliance towards substantive safeguards. This includes advancing approaches that embed the precautionary principle, address uncertainty and potential irreversibility, and foreground equity, accountability, and sovereignty in decision-making. Such engagement will be essential to ensuring that Target 17 is operationalised in ways that effectively safeguard biodiversity, uphold public interest, and support just and inclusive governance of rapidly evolving biotechnologies.
Background
Biosafety measures are required to ensure that living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from biotechnology are handled and used with the necessary safety precautions, as articulated under the CPB under the CBD. Unlike the Aichi Targets, which did not include a dedicated target, the KM–GBF’s Target 17 marked an important step in recognising biosafety as a stand-alone priority. However, following protracted and contested negotiations, Target 17 was significantly diluted, falling short of what is required to ensure biosafety in the context of rapidly evolving modern biotechnologies (Masinjila & Mayet, 2023).
Target 17 was expected to be forward-looking, including provisions for broad horizon scanning, assessment, and monitoring—processes critical for enabling governments to anticipate, evaluate, and democratically regulate new and emerging technologies. This is particularly important in Africa, where research and development involving genome editing is gaining momentum, with applications in crops such as maize, cassava, and banana using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) technology underway (ISAAA, 2021). ACB’s recent analyses further show that this trajectory is not limited to research alone but is accompanied by an active push to promote and deregulate genome editing through public-private partnerships, research funding, and policy reforms that seek to place many genome-edited products outside the scope of biosafety regulation (ACB, 2024a; ACB, 2024b). This growing trajectory is occurring in the absence of clear international guidance or coordinated oversight under the auspices of the CBD and the CPB, leaving significant gaps in governance.
Under the KM–GBF, Target 17 aims to:
Strengthen biosafety and distribute the benefits of biotechnology: establish, strengthen capacity for, and implement in all countries biosafety measures as set out in Article 8(g)2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity and measures for the handling of biotechnology and distribution of its benefits as set out in Article 19 of the Convention.
2
Decision 16/313 at COP16—held in Cali, Colombia, in 2024—established a set of headline and binary indicators as well as optional disaggregations, component indicators, and complementary indicators under the monitoring framework of the KM–GBF. Target 17 is associated with a single headline indicator: the number of countries that have taken action to implement biosafety measures as set out in Article 8(g) of the CBD and measures for the handling of biotechnology and the distribution of its benefits as set out in Article 19. As Parties implement relevant plans under the CPB, they will contribute directly to achieving Target 17. The mid-term review of these plans is linked to the fifth assessment and review of the CPB, which will be considered in the lead-up to COP17 during the seventh meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI-7), 4–12 August 2026, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Importantly, Decision 16/54 established a permanent subsidiary body under Article 8(j), providing IPLCs with a stronger institutional role in matters within the scope of the CBD and its Protocols, including in the implementation of the KM–GBF. COP16 also advanced on several biotechnology-related issues, as discussed in more detail below.
3 Decision 16/31: Monitoring framework for the KM–GBF: https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-16/cop-16-dec-31-en.pdf
4 Decision 16/5: Institutional arrangements for the full and effective participation of IPLCs in the work undertaken under the CBD: https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-16/cop-16-dec-05-en.pdf
Emerging biotechnologies and contested governance processes at the CBD
Synthetic biology
Despite longstanding deliberations on the governance of synthetic biology (synbio) under the CBD, outcomes have remained limited. At COP16, the Parties adopted Decision 16/215 on synbio, which initiates a thematic action plan (TAP) centred primarily on capacity building, technology transfer, and knowledge sharing, and establishes a new ad hoc technical expert group (AHTEG) to advance this work; however, the decision is widely regarded as insufficient to address the governance challenges posed by these technologies (TWN, 2024a; TWN, 2024b). While these outcomes signal continued institutional engagement with synbio, they reflect a narrow and unbalanced approach that prioritises the promotion and uptake of these technologies over the development of robust governance safeguards, particularly with respect to risk assessment, long-term monitoring, and operationalisation of the precautionary approach.
Central to civil society concerns are the scope, orientation, and omissions reflected in the current institutional processes, as set out in both the TAP and the AHTEG mandate. Key concerns relate to the narrowing and the lack of explicit inclusion of a broad, regular process for horizon scanning, monitoring, and assessment of rapidly evolving technological developments. This represents a critical gap: without a clearly defined and ongoing mechanism for anticipatory assessment, responses remain reactive and insufficient to address uncertainty and potential harm. Instead, the AHTEG is mandated to focus primarily on the benefits and opportunities of synbio, including capacity building, technology transfer, and knowledge sharing, thereby sidelining rigorous assessment of risks, uncertainties, failures, efficacy, and suitability. As a result, key socio-economic, cultural, and ethical dimensions are not adequately addressed, despite being fundamental to evaluating the implications of these technologies for the CBD’s three objectives (TWN, 2024b).
In addition, the outcomes related to the TAP fail to adequately prioritise the concerns of developing countries, particularly regarding inequities in participation in synbio, access to financial resources, and capacity building to assess the impacts of these technologies and their regulation (TWN, 2024b). A capacity-building agenda that omits biosafety considerations, as well as socio-economic, ethical, and cultural impacts, risks entrenching an inequitable framework that may enable the transfer or deployment of unsuitable or ineffective synthetic biology technologies in countries with limited capacity for assessment.
The draft TAP remains under negotiation. Following Decision 16/21, the CBD Secretariat issued a call for submissions to support its development, receiving 29 submissions from 19 Parties and 10 organisations, which are available on the Biosafety Clearing-House.6 The AHTEG convened its first meeting in May 2026; its inputs and recommendations will be considered by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) at its 28th meeting, scheduled for July 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya, in advance of further considerations at COP17.
6 Submissions of information on synbio to support the preparation of the TAP in the context of synbio and the work of the AHTEG on synbio: https://bch.cbd.int/en/submissions-to-notifications?schema=submission¤tPage=1¬ific ation=2025-088
Central concerns from civil society regarding the current draft TAP include:
• It is designed to facilitate the deployment of synbio products rather than to regulate their risks in line with the precautionary approach.
• It is not adequately aligned with the three objectives of the CBD.
• It remains extremely weak in relation to capacity building for risk assessment, particularly regarding uncertainties, potential adverse impacts, and the assessment of alternatives.
• It assumes that the benefits of synbio are established, without sufficiently acknowledging the significant uncertainties and limitations associated with these technologies.
• It fails to adequately address the structural inequalities and emerging biosafety and biosecurity risks, including the linkages between synbio and AI, which raise concerns regarding traceability, liability, and accountability, as well as the capacity to conduct robust risk assessments (Thomas, 2024; Hynek, 2025).
In the lead-up to SBSTTA 28 and COP17, where the TAP is expected to be adopted, it is critical that African civil society engages proactively with the government to safeguard biodiversity and protect national sovereignty, both of which are at significant risk. The TAP requires substantial revision to align with Decision 16/21 and, in particular, to support developing countries in fulfilling their obligations on synbio, in line with the three objectives of the CBD and its Protocols. This includes strengthening the precautionary approach and ensuring that capacity building encompasses robust risk assessment, as well as appropriate forms of technology transfer that safeguard national sovereignty with regard to research and development pathways, data governance, and emerging AI-driven synbio applications.
EGDs
EGDs are highly experimental genetic technologies designed to bias inheritance, allowing a genetic trait to spread through a population over successive generations (TWN, 2024c). Unlike most LMOs, which are typically intended to be contained or managed within defined production systems, gene drives are explicitly designed for spread and persistence in wild populations—often with the aim of altering, suppressing, or potentially eradicating target populations (TWN, 2024c). This design intention raises novel biosafety, socio-economic, ethical, cultural, and biosecurity concerns, while also challenging the adequacy of existing risk assessment methods and governance frameworks (TWN, 2024c).
A central concern is that EGDs introduce an intervention that is potentially transboundary and difficult—if not impossible—to recall or reverse once released. This destabilises conventional approaches to consent, because communities and neighbouring countries may be affected over time even if they were not part of the original decision-making process (TWN, 2024c). It also raises heightened questions of liability, redress, accountability, and long-term monitoring, especially in contexts where regulatory capacity and independent oversight remain uneven (TWN, 2024c).
CBD/CPB processes:
“guidance” has advanced but remains contested
At the 11th meeting of the COP serving as the meeting of the Parties to the CPB (CP-MOP) in Cali, held in 2024, Parties welcomed “additional voluntary guidance materials” to support case-by-case risk assessments of LMOs containing EGDs (CBD Secretariat, 2024; CP-MOP, 2024). The CP-MOP11 decision text also invited Parties and other actors to use the guidance materials to conduct risk assessments and for capacity-building purposes, and called for consideration of related issues in decision-making, including traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices of IPLCs.
However, civil society analysis has underscored that these materials remain contested and may not yet provide the level of methodological clarity required for robust and precautionary risk assessment—particularly given gene drives’ defining features: spread, persistence, uncertainty, and irreversibility (TWN, 2024c). Concerns have also been raised about approaches that narrow assessment framing—such as the use of “pathways to harm” under a “problem formulation approach”—on the basis that this can minimise data requirements for assessing risks and fail to address central and most controversial risks and uncertainties, including uncontrolled spread and persistence (Sirinathsinghji, 2024).
What may be on the COP17/CP-MOP12 agenda—and why it matters for EGDs
COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19–30 October 2026, will convene concurrently with the 12th meeting of the CP-MOP. The CP-MOP12 provisional agenda includes multiple items directly relevant to EGD governance, including: risk assessment and risk management of LMOs; detection and identification of LMOs; socio-economic considerations; national legislation, regulations, and guidelines on new developments in modern biotechnology; and the Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress. The agenda also includes the assessment and review of the effectiveness of the CPB and the mid-term evaluation of its implementation and capacity-building action plans—important given that the EGD guidance is framed as a tool for supporting risk assessment and capacity building.
In other words, EGDs are likely to remain anchored within a set of linked governance questions at COP17/CP-MOP12: whether case-by-case risk assessment is adequate for self-propagating technologies; how detection, monitoring, and traceability can be operationalised; how socio-economic considerations and community authority are treated in decision-making; and whether liability and redress can be meaningfully addressed for potentially irreversible and transboundary impacts.
Recent developments in Tanzania: “gene-drive-capable” mosquitoes and unresolved governance questions
Developments in Tanzania illustrate why African civil society is increasingly alarmed by the momentum behind gene drive mosquito projects on the continent. A peer-reviewed paper reports the engineering of local Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes under containment to generate a transgenic strain equipped with non-autonomous gene-drive capabilities, showing strong inhibition of genetically diverse Plasmodium falciparum isolates obtained from naturally infected children (Habtewold et al., 2025). The work is linked to the Transmission Zero partnership and involves Tanzanian institutions and international collaborators (Duncan, 2025; Lwetoijera, 2025).
Public institutional narratives around this milestone amplify expectations of future trials and present the work as a breakthrough associated with African scientific leadership (Duncan, 2025; Lwetoijera, 2025). Yet scientific achievement does not settle governance readiness for a technology whose defining purpose is future dissemination through wild populations (TWN, 2024a; TWN, 2024b). This is precisely why Tanzanian civil society organisations have sought to engage directly with the project and interrogate its claims, governance architecture, and social legitimacy.
This gap—between rapid scientific momentum and unresolved public interest questions— matters because gene drives raise questions about who decides, whose knowledge counts, who bears long-term ecological and social risks, and who is accountable if harms occur, including across borders and generations (TWN, 2024b; Finda, 2026). Tanzanian gene-driverelated research also relies on the collection and use of biologically and socially sensitive data and materials, including parasite isolates obtained from infected children (Habtewold et al., 2025). Tanzanian biodiversity-oriented civil society organisations engaged with gene drive mosquitoes have raised concerns about uncertainty, limited transparency, governance needs, and technological dependency. In this context, concerns about data governance and sovereignty—stewardship, access, secondary use, and benefit-sharing of community-derived biological materials and data—are not ancillary but central to public interest governance.
Why gene drive mosquito projects in Africa trigger profound concern
African civil society concerns about gene drive mosquito projects are not rooted in opposition to malaria control; they reflect a recognition that malaria injustice must not become a pathway for high-risk technological experimentation in contexts marked by unequal power and constrained regulatory capacity (TWN, 2024a; TWN, 2024b). ACB’s analysis of the financialisation of malaria strengthens this framing by tracing how disease response increasingly involves financial actors and product-centred pipelines, and how patented interventions can be advanced through funding structures that are not necessarily accountable to affected communities (Mentz-Lagrange & Swanepoel, 2022). The paper further warns that Africa can be positioned as a “living laboratory” for experimentation with externally driven technologies, with consequences borne locally rather than by technology owners and funders (Mentz-Lagrange & Swanepoel, 2022).
Key areas of concern include: irreversibility and transboundary effects; the difference between procedural approval and social legitimacy; the difficulty of meaningful liability, redress, and accountability once a drive spreads; the risk of technological dependency under externally shaped research pathways; and the governance of community-derived biological materials and data (TWN, 2024b).
Burkina Faso and the closure of Target Malaria: why it matters
The termination of Target Malaria activities in Burkina Faso underscores that gene-driveadjacent mosquito initiatives are not only scientifically contested but also politically and socially fragile. On 22 August 2025, Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation announced that it had terminated all Target Malaria activities within its territory; that facilities containing genetically modified mosquitoes were sealed; and that samples were to be destroyed accordingly (Durosinmi, 2025; Target Malaria, 2025).
Civil society organisations in Burkina Faso welcomed this as a landmark decision affirming sovereignty and public interest protection. The Coalition for Monitoring Biotechnology Activities (CVAB) publicly celebrated the termination and framed it in terms of scientific and health sovereignty, while raising concerns about transparency, participation, and free, prior, and informed consent (ACB, 2025). Regional biosafety reporting likewise described the decision as halting experimentation with genetically modified mosquitoes in the country and noted the intensity of opposition and scepticism around such trials (TWN, 2025). For African civil society, Burkina Faso’s decision is significant because it demonstrates that states can choose restraint even amid strong external pressure, and that claims of inevitability regarding gene drive trajectories are politically constructed rather than predetermined (ACB, 2025; TWN, 2025).
What this means moving forward
In the lead-up to CP-MOP12 and COP17, African civil society and governments will need to insist that biosafety governance for EGDs is not reduced to procedural “guidance” and narrow technical metrics but is treated as a profound test of precaution, equity, sovereignty, and accountability (TWN, 2024c). This includes calling for: precautionary thresholds that recognise irreversibility and transboundary movement; regionally coherent governance and consent approaches; meaningful public participation that centres communities likely to experience risks over time; enforceable liability and redress; and robust data governance and benefit-sharing protections where community-derived data and biological materials are foundational to project claims and trajectories (Sirinathsinghji, 2024).
Key considerations for African civil society
In the lead-up to SBSTTA 28, CP-MOP12 and COP17, African civil society faces a critical moment to shape how biosafety is interpreted and implemented under Target 17. The current trajectory—marked by voluntary guidance, fragmented governance processes, and accelerating technological development—requires a focused and strategic response grounded in precaution, sovereignty, and public interest.
1. Reframe biosafety as a governance question, not a technical one
Civil society should resist efforts to narrow biosafety to technical risk assessment processes alone. EGDs and synbio raise systemic questions of power, accountability, consent, and long-term ecological governance that cannot be resolved through case-by-case assessments. Engagement must therefore foreground precaution, democratic decision-making, and the integrity of ecosystems over the facilitation of technological uptake.
2. Push for strengthened precautionary thresholds
Given the irreversible, self-propagating, and transboundary nature of EGDs, civil society should insist on precautionary thresholds that go beyond existing voluntary guidance. This includes advocating for conditions under which technologies should not proceed, rather than focusing solely on how they might be assessed or managed.
3. Link fragmented CBD agenda items into a coherent governance position
At COP17/CP-MOP12, EGD-related issues will be dispersed across multiple agenda items— risk assessment, detection and identification, socio-economic considerations, national legislation, and liability and redress. Civil society should actively bridge these silos to advance a coherent position that integrates precaution, accountability, community authority, and enforceable governance mechanisms.
4. Centre community authority, participation, and consent
Procedural compliance cannot substitute for legitimacy. The experiences emerging from Tanzania, including unresolved civil society engagement and questions around transparency and data use, underscore the need to prioritise meaningful participation; free, prior, and informed consent; and the authority of communities most likely to bear long-term risks.
5. Assert data governance and sovereignty as core biosafety issues
Where projects rely on community-derived biological materials and data, governance questions of stewardship, access, secondary use, and benefit-sharing must be central. These are not ancillary concerns, but integral to ensuring that African countries retain control over both knowledge systems and technological trajectories.
6. Interrogate external drivers and funding architectures
Civil society engagement should explicitly address the political economy shaping gene drive and synbio research. As highlighted by ACB’s analysis of the financialisation of malaria, externally driven, product-centred innovation pathways risk embedding dependency while shifting risks onto African ecosystems and communities. Engagement must therefore interrogate who sets research agendas, who benefits, and who bears long-term costs.
7. Use Burkina Faso as a precedent for sovereignty and restraint
The termination of Target Malaria activities in Burkina Faso provides a powerful example that states can choose precaution and assert sovereignty. Civil society should draw on this precedent to challenge narratives of inevitability and to advocate for regional approaches grounded in public interest, transparency, and accountability.
8. Coordinate strategically across the region
To influence outcomes at COP17, civil society should prioritise:
• Clear, shared African “red lines” on precaution, liability, data sovereignty, and participation;
• Coordinated engagement with governments and regional blocs; and
• Targeted inputs into SBSTTA and CP-MOP processes that translate political concerns into concrete textual and decision-making proposals.
Conclusion
Target 17 marks an important recognition of biosafety within global biodiversity governance through the KM–GBF; however, its current formulation and implementation pathways remain insufficient to respond to the scale and pace of developments in modern biotechnology. However, as set out in this paper, its effectiveness will depend on how it is operationalised in relation to other KM–GBF targets, particularly on benefit-sharing, resource mobilisation, and implementation.
Recent decisions under the CBD and CPB—particularly on synbio and EGDs—demonstrate that institutional processes are advancing, but not yet at the level required to ensure precaution, accountability, or equitable outcomes. Instead, there is a growing gap between technological momentum and the capacity of existing frameworks to meaningfully regulate technologies characterised by uncertainty, irreversibility, and transboundary effects. This gap is further shaped by the political economy of technological development, including externally driven research agendas and financing architectures that influence how “solutions” are prioritised, developed, and deployed.
Developments in Tanzania and the closure of Target Malaria activities in Burkina Faso underscore that biosafety governance is not an abstract regulatory issue but a concrete political and social question—shaped by power, legitimacy, trust, and sovereignty. These experiences highlight the risks of proceeding without robust governance as well as the possibility of asserting restraint in defence of public interest.
COP17 and CP-MOP12 will not resolve these tensions, but they will be decisive in determining their direction. They will signal whether biosafety under Target 17 evolves into a substantive framework capable of safeguarding biodiversity and communities, or remains limited to procedural guidance that is inadequate for the realities of self-propagating technologies.
A forward-looking implementation of Target 17 therefore requires more than technical refinement—it requires proactive integration into NBSAPs as sites of decision-making, where precautionary thresholds, independent assessment capacity, data sovereignty, and community authority can be concretely defined and operationalised. Only through such an approach can Target 17 move beyond symbolic recognition to become an effective safeguard for biodiversity and for the communities whose lives and livelihoods depend on it in an era of rapidly evolving biotechnology.
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