Latin America, Southeast Asia and East Africa each have rich biodiversity, and are regions where bioeconomy can be a promising avenue for sustainable development, balancing economic growth with environmental stewardship. While implementation of a bioeconomy strategy generally follows a roadmap that provides concrete steps and actions appropriate to the particular context and level, the gap between strategies and their implementation tends to be more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries due to financing constraints. To better understand these implementation gaps, this working paper provides an analysis of bioeconomy strategies and their implementation at the subnational, national and regional levels in these regions.

The study focuses on cases in these regions where smaller-scale and artisanal bioeconomy approaches are considered alongside the more traditional larger-scale and/or industrial-oriented approaches. Colombia was chosen due to the recent prominence given to its bioeconomy strategy development, but also because of the importance of subnational bioeconomy strategies. Thailand was chosen in Southeast Asia because it has given prominence to both industrial and artisanal approaches to bioeconomy. Finally, East Africa was chosen as it is the only region outside the EU with a comprehensive regional-level bioeconomy strategy. This set of cases aims for broad learning on bioeconomy strategies across levels as well as regions.

A number of key cross-region topics emerged within the case studies in regards to implementation of bioeconomy strategies:

• Monitoring is critical and requires gathering data at all levels, where specific indicators such as gender equality can track progress and help adjust strategies over time for greater long-term impact.
• There is a great need for capacity building, including multi-stakeholder collaboration and context-specific training programs to support farmers and marginalized communities and promote technology adoption.
• Financial support is needed from diverse sources, including international sources and public-private partnerships, as well as mechanisms for combining social and economic benefits for stakeholders.
• Highly inclusive processes are needed to bring farmers, the private sector and development agencies together and integrate bioeconomy efforts with other sectors, in addition to effective policy instruments to reduce bureaucratic barriers.