Strategy and roadmap
Current MAB Strategy and action plan 2015-2025
To understand and address the key challenges facing our world – poverty, climate change, water and food security, loss of biological and cultural diversity, rapid urbanization and desertification – the Man and the Biosphere Programme, through its World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) and its regional and thematic networks, is strategically addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through sustainable development actions in biosphere reserves, carried out in partnership with all sectors of society, to ensure the well-being of people and their environment.
In 2015, the Members States adopted 4 strategic objectives for the MAB Programme. An action plan to achieve these objectives was adopted a year later.
The Strategy and roadmap of the MAB Programme is comprised of three documents:
- the MAB Strategy 2015-2025;
- the Lima Declaration (2016) on the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and its World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR), which was subscribed by UNESCO Member States, biosphere reserves, and co-operating public and private sector institutions, as well as civil society organizations. It expresses their political commitment with the Programme and lays out the principles of the Lima Action Plan;
- the Lima Action Plan for UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and its World Network of Biosphere Reserves (2016-2025), which contains a comprehensive set of actions aimed at ensuring the effective implementation of the MAB Strategy 2015-2025.
Preparation for the 2025-2035 Strategy
In 2025, the upcoming 5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves will develop the new 2025-2035 MAB Strategy in Hangzhou, China. The new roadmap will re-visit the role and the scope of MAB Programme in the context of the conclusion of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This roadmap will be accompanied by an action plan, guiding the programme’s implementation.