Goodbye WABES – Hello CABES!

Implemented from 2017 to 2022, the West African Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (WABES) project was initiated to facilitate networking among stakeholders and capacity-building across West Africa to support the work programmes of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The project was implemented by a consortium of partners including CoKnow Consulting.

Our role was to teach a range of courses on IPBES topics, skills to manage science policy practice interfaces as well as methods of knowledge co-production. We also had the pleasure to supervise masters’ thesis and to co-organise and facilite workshops. Within 4 years together with other consortium partners we (1) empowered over 50 regional experts to apply and contribute to IPBES assessments and other IPBES activities (2) organised 9 regional workshops in which 174 West African experts exchanged on IPBES developments and (3) developed the graduate program “Managing the Science-Policy Interface on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for sustainable development in West Africa – SPIBES”  to train 30 young scientists who have now earned their Master of Science degrees.

After reaching these milestones, it is now time to scale up. We are expanding our efforts with the CABES – Capacity Development for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Experts project to Central and East African regions. CABES also aims at developing and strengthening the capacity of professionals in biodiversity-related fields to better engage in IPBES. Within CABES, CoKnow Consulting leads on the CABES Capacity Development Programme (CCDP) for professionals and organises online and face-to-face trainings.

Further information on the CABES project can be found here: www.cabes.online