The Conference encompassed the Sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16), the Eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the Fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization. It included a high-level ministerial segment.

COP 16 was the first Biodiversity COP since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP 15 in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada.

At COP 16, governments were tasked with reviewing the state of implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Parties to the Convention were expected to show the alignment of their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) with the Framework. COP 16 further developed the monitoring framework and advanced resource mobilization for the Global Biodiversity Framework. Among other tasks, COP 16 was also due to finalize and operationalize the multilateral mechanism on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources.

The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16) was suspended in the morning of Nov. 2, but not before countries agreed on an expanded role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in saving biodiversity and reached a groundbreaking agreement on the operationalization of a new global mechanism to share benefits from digital genetic information.