January
The metaverse can deliver interactive and immersive experiences to users and will change how people socialise, shop and work. It will complement an already booming gaming market globally and allow brands to reach huge audiences with minimal environmental impact. This seismic change will generate new creative works to be protected and a new environment in which to enforce IP rights.
The United Kingdom’s Technology Trade Association
February
The adoption by the African Union of the theme of the Year 2023 as the “Year of AfCFTA: Acceleration of the African Continental Free Trade Area Implementation”, is expected to generate greater political commitment and accelerate the effective implementation of the AfCFTA to fully benefit the African citizenry and achieve the Aspirations and goals of Agenda 2063. In 2023, the AfCFTA Guided Trade shall also focus on Trade inServices in the five priority areas, namely: Tourism, transport, Business Services; Communication Services; Financial Services; Transport Services, and Tourism and Travel-related Services
African Union
March
Humanity generates an estimated 2.24 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually, of which only 55 per cent is managed in controlled facilities. By 2050, this could rise to 3.88 billion tons per year. The waste sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in urban settings and biodiversity loss. Around 931 million tons of food is wasted each year, and up to 37 million tons of plastic waste is expected to enter the ocean annually by 2040. Zero-waste initiatives can foster sound waste management and minimize and prevent waste. This contributes to reducing pollution, mitigating the climate crisis, conserving biodiversity, enhancing food security and improving human health.
United Nations Environmental Programme
April
“Women and IP: Accelerating innovation and creativity”
Women everywhere are: Driving scientific breakthroughs, Setting new creative trends, Building businesses and transforming our world. Women bring new perspectives and talents to the table. But there is a problem! Too few women are participating in the intellectual property (IP) system. That means too few women are benefitting from IP. And when women lose out, we all lose out. So we need to encourage more women to use the IP system to protect and add value to their work. That way, we can: Develop more and better technologies that work for everyone, Establish more thriving woman-led businesses, Support economic recovery and build back better.
World Intellectual Property Organisation, World Intellectual Property Day 2023
May
The world’s complex web of biological diversity sustains all life on Earth. Yet it is unravelling at alarming speed — and humanity is to blame. We are contaminating land, oceans and freshwater with toxic pollution, wrecking landscapes and ecosystems, and disrupting our precious climate with greenhouse gas emissions. Decimating biodiversity damages sustainable development today and creates a dangerous and uncertain tomorrow. Let us act urgently to put biodiversity on a path to recovery. And let us build ambition to the sixteenth United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties in October to protect the planet and create a more sustainable future for us all.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres
June
Plastic pollution is out of control. Fueled by unsustainable production and consumption, the rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution have created a serious environmental problem on a global scale, putting the world’s health and economic and social well-being at risk. To solve the plastic pollution emergency… Governments, industry, and individuals must embrace a circular approach that considers the full life cycle of plastics, from production, to consumption, to waste management. This means that when plastic is introduced into the economy, it remains there, while harmful, avoidable, and unnecessary plastics are eliminated and substituted with sustainable options and practices.
United Nations Environment Programme
July
The right to food provides the best way to respond to and recover from the food crisis. The right to food is key to national plans aimed at making food systems more resilient in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss. There is an urgent need to realize the right to food through a coordinated and sustained effort, using the advantages and synergies offered by international cooperation and solidarity to find comprehensive solutions to the common current and future problems facing humanity.
Professor Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
August
Policymakers must prioritise agroecology and farmer managed seed systems (FMSS), which promote social justice and environmental sustainability rather than pursuing a one-size-fits-all extractive industrial model, which favours multinational seed companies and the private sector. In this regard, it is crucial that they prioritise public investments in food and seed systems that sustain and conserve agricultural biodiversity, support smallholder farmers, and align with Afrocentric approaches to minimise harm to the continent’s agricultural fragile ecology.
African Centre for Biodiversity
September
Farmers feed the world, by producing the food on which we all depend. Since farmers are the developers and custodians of crop diversity in the field, their rights in this regard are critical if they are to continue maintaining their pivotal role in providing food security and nutrition – never more so than in the current era of climate change and other major challenges facing humanity.
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
October
“Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind”
Water scarcity is one of the foremost development issues of our time. And yet, depending on where we are in the world, the fragility of our water resources may not always be evident. Perhaps because for many of us water is everywhere in our daily lives and economy, it can be hard to imagine that, today, 2.4 billion people live in countries that are stressed for water. With nearly three-quarters of all freshwater going to agriculture, changing the ways we produce our food, fibre, and other agricultural products has the biggest potential for impact. It is also where failure to act will become most apparent. Collectively, we risk reaching a point of no return, and climate change is bound to worsen our water challenges. Without action, we are on course to increase our water use by more than a third by 2050.
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, World Food Day 2023
November
Most Ultra Processed Food (UFP) is not food. It’s an industrially produced edible substance.
Fernanda Rauber
December
Better conservation and use of seed diversity contributes to the transformation of sustainable food systems.
Tenth Session of the Governing Body, International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
