The development of the Draft AU Guidelines came as a result of the call made by Member States at different fora to harmonize and coordinate Africa’s voice in a concerted manner in order to make a meaningful impact on how the different countries utilize their natural resources, how they benefit from the wealth of the existing traditional knowledge and make available ways and means of negotiating mutually agreed terms on access.

At the political level the AU Assembly of Heads of States and Government have already decided in one voice that issues of biological diversity should be among the priority areas of the African Union and called on the Commission to report on initiatives implementing this decision. What is more, the African Ministers Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), besides formally establishing the African Group of Negotiators on biodiversity last year has endorsed the process of the development of the AU Guidelines on ABS also calling for African countries to ratify the Nagoya Protocol on ABS and further scale up measures to implement it at the national level.