The special session will provide an opportunity for the continent to find common ground for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in Kunming, China, in the second quarter of 2021. The Conference of the Parties comes at a critical time, taking into consideration the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in the number of zoonotic diseases owing to destruction of habitats by human activity. The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties will also be finalizing its post-2020 global biodiversity framework.