Business Eswatini (BE) invites relevant member companies to participate in a Technical Review Meeting on the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) 3.0, to be held jointly with the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs and the Eswatini National Trust Commission (ENTC).

Details of the meeting:

Date: Wednesday, 23 September 2026
Time: 09:00 – 13:00
Venue: Business Eswatini Offices – War Room

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Following the recent validation process, BE submitted formal private-sector comments on the NBSAP 3.0. Our submission supports the overall objectives of the Strategy while proposing refinements aimed at ensuring that its implementation is practical, proportionate and aligned with existing regulatory and policy frameworks.

The upcoming meeting provides an important opportunity for direct technical engagement between the private sector and the responsible authorities before the policy is submitted to Cabinet for approval. Members will be able to elaborate on the practical implications of the proposed measures, provide sector-specific evidence and assist in refining provisions that may affect businesses.

We particularly encourage participation from companies and institutions operating in or exposed to the following sectors:

• Agriculture and agro-processing; forestry and timber; water; energy; mining; tourism; infrastructure and construction; manufacturing and other industrial activities; and financial services. The NBSAP has implications across these areas, including through biodiversity disclosure, spatial planning and land-use considerations, financing, incentive reform, environmental reporting and sustainable production.
• For financial institutions, we particularly encourage participation by institutions involved in the Green Finance Taxonomy being developed by the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, given the NBSAP’s proposed biodiversity-finance, green-finance and related financing mechanisms.
• For companies, we encourage attendance by the officials best placed to engage technically on these matters, including Environmental, Sustainability/ESG, SHERQ, Regulatory/Compliance and relevant operational officers or managers.

This engagement is important because the NBSAP is not solely an environmental policy. Its implementation could have implications for investment and land-use decisions, corporate reporting and disclosure, access to finance, environmental compliance, incentives, production costs and the treatment of existing sustainability and certification systems. BE’s submission therefore seeks to ensure that biodiversity objectives are achieved while maintaining investment certainty and competitiveness and avoiding unnecessary duplication of existing regulatory requirements.

Among the issues BE has raised are proportionality of requirements for businesses and SMEs, recognition of existing compliance systems, protection of commercially sensitive information, private-sector financing expectations, forestry and land-use provisions, biodiversity-related finance, institutional arrangements and alignment between the NBSAP and the approved NDC 3.0.

BE’s formal submission is attached for members’ review ahead of the meeting. Members are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the submission and come prepared with any technical comments, practical examples or proposed refinements from their respective sectors.

This is an important opportunity for the private sector to help shape the final policy before approval, rather than addressing implementation challenges after the framework has already been adopted. We therefore strongly encourage affected members to participate and ensure that the final NBSAP is both environmentally ambitious and practically implementable. Kindly confirm your attendance to our Head: Trade and Commerce at musam@business-eswatini.co.sz by Friday 18 September 2026