http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4298-7750
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Abstract
In 2013, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) agreed to carry out a regional assessment for Africa. Since then, roughly 100 authors have been working to deliver, in 2018, a document that not only synthesises existing knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services for the African region but to distil from it knowledge that is relevant, credible, and legitimate for both societal and scientific practise. This requires, firstly, to carefully constituting the group of authors and, secondly, to design an assessment process that allows for deriving at an integrated perspective amongst these experts. Such a joint process of knowledge production that encompasses both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration can be framed as co-creation. In this contribution, we analyse whether the IPBES African assessment accounts for these two prerequisites for an effective assessment process. Our particular interest lays in the question whether scholars from social sciences and the humanities are sufficiently involved. Our analysis is based on the curriculum vitae of 97 members of the expert group, and reads quite straightforward: there is an overall lack of non-natural science perspectives and expertise that might lead to essential knowledge and data gaps when wishing to understand the effects of the diverse human concepts of and activities on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In order to address these gaps and to derive at an assessment report truly relevant for policy makers as well as other social and scientific actors, IPBES needs to widen its outreach to networks of scholars from the social sciences and the humanities and to inform them appropriately about the specific roles they could play within IPBES processes, particularly assessments.
ORCID
Katja Heubach http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4298-7750
Notes
1 The IPBES Regional Assessment for Africa is one of 12 assessments IPBES is to undertake during the phase of its first work programme 2014 to 2018, and among the four regional assessments (for Asia-Pacific, Africa, Americas, and Europa/Central Asia) of the Platform.
2 The report of the final of three multi-stakeholder meetings preparing the establishment of IPBES.
3 As stated in the “Busan Outcome”, the report of the 3rd multi-stakeholder meeting on IPBES, Busan, 2010; UNEP/IPBES/Citation3/INF/Citation1/Add.Citation1 Citation2010.
4 Future Earth was launched in 2015, being the follow-up to recent programmes addressing global environmental change, such as DIVERSITAS or the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP).
5 We would like to emphasize that we are not looking at the quality of the process in terms of quality standards in transdisciplinary process. One major reason for this is that currently only few of such quality standards exist and the results of the current debate around this subject remain to be seen. The other reason is that the process is still in its drafting stage and therefore such evaluation seems far too early.
6 IPBES defines to categories of stakeholder: “contributors (scientists, knowledge holders, practitioners and others) and end-users (policymakers and others).” (IPBES/Citation3/Citation18 Citation2015, p. 114, para 8)
7 Subsidiary body in charge of administrative issues
8 With the exception of so-called fast-track assessments which would not need a detailed scoping as the availability of data and knowledge on the selected topic is considerable comprehensive and accessible to allow for a “fast” synthesis. In this contribution we only look at the standard process for assessments under IPBES.
9 For Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe/Central-Asia
10 This data is derived from an analysis of the constitution of the list of participants of the scoping workshop for the regional assessments as provided by IPBES on its website: http://www.ipbes.net/work-programme/regional-and-subregional-assessments.
11 Personal communication and findings from several IPBES-related workshops conducted by the Network-Forum for Biodiversity Research Germany – NeFo http://www.biodiversity.de/de
12 Information obtained from frequent discussions with African colleagues and others engaged in IPBES, during IPBES plenaries and related workshops and meetings.
13 IPBES/4/15, Annex