✨COP17 – Launch of the Biodiversity Youth Negotiator Programme✨
Dearest friends and collaborators,
When the Youth Negotiators Academy (YNA) was founded in 2022, the Climate Youth Negotiator Programme (CYNP) was just the beginning. Our shared vision was and remains to build an ecosystem and community of practice across all three Rio Conventions — a space where young negotiators strengthen synergies, coherence, and implementation between UNFCCC, UNCCD, and CBD.
Piloting the Land Youth Negotiator Programme (LYNP) in 2024 was the next step in that journey. Now, it is time for our next move: closing the circle of Rio Conventions.
As YNA marks its five‑year journey of strengthening intergenerational participation in multilateral environmental processes, this moment carries particular significance. Guided by a transdisciplinary approach that builds young negotiators’ skills, confidence, legitimacy, and access, YNA has grown from 26 to 111 UN Member States and trained over 900 young negotiators through formal MoUs with national focal points — demonstrating that structured, long‑term capacity development works and can be successfully replicated within the CBD.
Together with the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), we warmly invite you to join us for an evening of celebration on the occasion of the launch of the Biodiversity Youth Negotiator Programme (BYNP) on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, at 18:15 in Talin - Side-event Room 1 at CBD COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia.
It is a moment to celebrate how far we have come together and to honour the intergenerational community that continues to shape and sustain YNA’s mission.
As we open this new chapter, we warmly welcome deeper collaboration with our ecosystem. We would love to connect with Parties interested in signing MoUs to join the BYNP, funders wishing to support capacity development, and organisations and individuals eager to collaborate on curriculum design and training training pathways that respond to CBD needs.
Your presence would greatly honour us, and we would love if you could kindly RSVP through this form to confirm your attendance.
Should you require any assistance or further information, please do not hesitate to reach out to our team directly by contacting us at institutional.relations@youthnegotiators.org
We eagerly anticipate the opportunity to welcome you and celebrate this important milestone together.
Warmly,
Veena Balakrishnan and Marie-Claire Graf
Co-Founders and Co-Directors
Youth Negotiators Academy