The Drumbeat team is delighted to begin the year 2023 with your trusted companionship, once again promising to keep you abreast of happenings in the biosciences sphere, as we join you in helping build a world better prepared for today's and future challenges. This edition, comes amid unabatingly harsh weather in most of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), thus massive crop and animal production failure, occasioning an alarm for food crisis and continued search and hope for solutions in biosciences. This edition is dedicated to Africa's participation in the just concluded UN Biodiversity Conference, particularly the Tenth meeting of the conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties to Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP 10) in Montreal, Canada.

In the story of the month, Dr. Paul Chege of ISAAA AfriCenter recounts the participation of African Parties in COP-MOP 10, presents the major decision of the conference and how ISAAA AfriCenter and aligned partner organizations participated in the international biosafety negotiations. He explains why coordination of the African Group of Negotiators and preparatory meetings in the lead up to and during COP-MOP meetings are an absolute necessity. Paul once again makes a case for young scientists and communicators need to be involved in the negotiations as they are the custodians of biological diversity.

In the video of the month, Mrs. Bibiana Iraki moderates and hosts a discussion on the auspices of COP-MOP10 with Dr. Roy Mugiira, Dr. Lilian Chimphepo, Mr. Eric Okoree and Mrs Nazik Dafalla, Party delegates from Kenya, Malawi, Ghana and Sudan respectively, on their respective countries' journeys and experience with the domestication of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB). They delve into a raft of issues up on the agenda of COP-MOP10, and share their perspective as Africa Group of Negotiators on various agenda items including Target 17 of Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

In our newsroom, we feature the change of guard at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and laud the leadership of Dr. Jimmy Smith as we congratulate and welcome the new head, Prof. Appolinaire Djikeng.

In the publications and announcements segments, we highlight the upcoming annual National Biosafety Conference in Kenya, organized by Kenya's National Biosafety Authority to be held on February 21-24,2023 in Naivasha, Kenya. We are also pleased to invite you to register for the African Biennial Biosciences Conference (ABBC2023), that will be held in Nairobi, Kenya between August 22, 24, 2023.