SPS8 in Accra: Turning Phosphorus Challenges into Global Action

Phosphorus is a critical nutrient, essential for fertiliser production and global food security. However, poor management across the anthropogenic phosphorus cycle leads to losses associated with pollution of water bodies, driving eutrophication, biodiversity loss, and methane emissions. Addressing these interconnected challenges requires a sustainable, circular approach across the entire phosphorus cycle. Critically, this challenge requires close collaboration across sectors, countries, and disciplines.

The Sustainable Phosphorus Summit (SPS) is a global conference series dedicated to advancing research, dialogue, and action on sustainable global phosphorus management. The SPS is convened to address these grand challenges and to catalyse coordinated international responses. SPS8 took place in Accra (Ghana) 30th September to 3rd October 2025[1]. This conference was attended by 120 delegates in-person and 548 delegates online and was the first SPS event to be held on the African continent. The GEF-funded uPcycle project was a sponsor of the event, and members of the uPcycle team contributed to the event’s coordination, attended as delegates of the main conference and international expert groups to present deliverables from the project, delivered a successful stakeholder workshop, and coordinated an upcoming white paper with stakeholders present at the summit.

[1] SPS8 was organised by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Ghana, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology West Africa Office, Lancaster University, and Rothamsted Research, and supported by the Development Bank Ghana, University of Southern Denmark, Ragn-Sells, the African Plant Nutrition Institute, the Global Environment Facility through the uPcycle Project, and the Volta River Authority.

Through the uPcycle project, we address the social, environmental, and economic impacts of phosphorus pollution by focusing on lakes as critical points of ecosystem degradation. The project aims to promote circular economy solutions to reduce nutrient losses, food waste, and wastewater discharges, while enhancing resilience in agriculture, aquaculture, and drinking water systems. We aim to integrate sustainable phosphorus management across local, national, and international policies, contributing to SDG 6.3.2 and transboundary ecosystem protection. Through this work we aim to empower communities, support inclusive innovation, and promote collaboration and sustainable development across sectors which utilise phosphorus as a resource.

Echoing the objectives of the uPcycle project, SPS8 focused on addressing six Global Phosphorus Challenges:

1. Phosphorus is critical in supporting global food security.
2. Access to phosphorus is varied across the world and we need to improve access and benefits where needed, e.g. Africa.
3. Phosphorus pollution of water can result in biodiversity loss and human health impacts.
4. There are complex interactions between phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon and climate.
5. Sustainable mining and recycling are essential to preserve phosphorus for future generations.
6. We need to improve our governance of phosphorus locally and globally.

Conference sessions were organised around these themes, with delegates of diverse genders, career stages, and nationalities presenting research and perspectives. Panel discussions then explored collaborative strategies to tackle these challenges. This Experience Note summarises the conference outcomes, highlights discussions relevant to uPcycle’s shared goals, and outlines how uPcycle’s deliverables contributed to the event.

Summary

SPS8 featured a diverse programme of conference sessions, each dedicated to a specific challenge and structured around a highlight talk (see Issues/Challenges), several short lightning talks, and a panel discussion. The summit featured around 60 presentations in total. Afternoon sessions were devoted to three key working groups: developing a Phosphorus Action Plan for Africa (including a side event for the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network), drafting a Global Phosphorus White Paper, and co-writing an article addressing the evolving needs of early career researchers in times of geopolitical uncertainty. The opening day included a partners and sponsors exposition at which uPcycle operated a booth to discuss the project, share materials, and showcase our upcoming Global Phosphorus Dashboard tool (app login details available upon request: upcycle@ceh.ac.uk).  The second day concluded with a poster session showcasing 20 posters and a video of solidarity messages from major organizations such as UNEP, FARA, and the Soil Science Society of Ghana.

As part of SPS8, delegates participated in one of three field trips: to the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, the Volta River Authority (VRA), or the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. These fieldtrips were interlinked and chosen by the organising committee to showcase a successful example of phosphorus recycling. At the Volta River Authority, delegates were shown the process of the removal of invasive water hyacinths from the Volta reservoir. This work is necessary for the maintenance of the region’s hydropower station and has also provided an opportunity to sell the removed hyacinth to the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, where the material is processed into high-quality compost fertiliser products. This compost is then used to fertilise crops at sites such as the Cocoa Research Institute. These industrial visits therefore showcase the successful implementation of sustainable phosphorus recycling, grounded in the principles of a circular nutrient economy; key values for both the SPS8 network and the uPcycle project.

The closing ceremony emphasised the importance of collaboration among research, government, NGOs, industry, and academia. SPS8 concluded with a communique announcing the creation of the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network (ASPNet), which will coordinate future action for phosphorus sustainability across the continent.

uPcycle Stakeholder Workshop

Prior to the commencement of SPS8, the uPcycle project held a multi-national workshop, attended by 28 stakeholders, to address the challenges of sustainable lake management, bringing together experts from the UK, Europe, Brazil, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

The objectives of this workshop were to advance sustainable lake management across Africa by exploring key themes such as:

• Nutrient and conservation management in African lakes
• Ecological health, livelihoods, and food security
• Key environmental pressures and policy landscapes
• Opportunities for sustainable success

The workshop aimed to foster inclusive and engaging discussions surrounding challenges and best practices with lake management that would then inform the group's engagement in SPS8 and support the development of the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network. Learning and discussions from the workshop would then be further developed from insights from the SPS8 field trip to the VRA.

Working Group 2

Building on the six global phosphorus challenges and led by uPcycle members Issy Lewis and Will Brownlie, Workshop 2 at SPS8 brought together 28 stakeholders from 17 countries and 22 institutions to refine and prioritise actionable recommendations. The workshop focused on translating high-level global ambitions into practical strategies, showing how overarching goals can inform regional, national, and local action. Participants developed cross-cutting recommendations and pathways for national phosphorus action planning, demonstrating how global objectives can be adapted into implementable steps on the ground.

The resulting white paper (in press) presents global recommendations for each challenge that are broadly applicable, alongside Africa-focused sections that examine each challenge in the regional context and provide recommendations tailored to local circumstances. This structure creates a “golden thread” connecting high-level international guidance to actionable strategies at regional, national, and local scales, reinforcing the foundation for policy guidance, capacity-building, and sustainable phosphorus management.‘

Global Phosphorus Dashboard

One of uPcycle’s central deliverables is the Global Phosphorus Dashboard tool. This is an open-access web application which harmonises phosphorus and nitrogen data from over 50 sources, covering more than 40,000 lake catchments worldwide. It enables users to visualise and download information on nutrient emissions across sectors such as agriculture, aquaculture, and wastewater, alongside socio-economic and environmental indicators. The dashboard supports integrated governance by providing forecasts relating to shared socio-economic pathways projections (1970–2070) under various development scenarios.

At SPS8, the uPcycle team showcased the Global Phosphorus Dashboard to delegates representing a range of research and industry sectors. The dashboard was presented through a 5-minute lightning talk as part of the “Reducing Phosphorus Pollution Impacts on Biodiversity and Human Health” session, as part of an uPcycle sponsor’s booth, and during a technical poster presentation.

At the booth, delegates were invited to explore the dashboard through one-to-one demonstrations, discuss potential applications, and join the uPcycle mailing list for updates on the tool’s public release. The poster presentation outlined the dashboard’s internal structure, functionality, and potential use cases for research, education, and policy. Across these activities, approximately 35 delegates engaged directly with the dashboard, with 28 signing up for further communications.

In addition to fostering discussion of sustainable phosphorus management, the event saw the creation of the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network (ASPNet). In addition a new SPS Early Careers Network was established, which is currently developing a perspectives paper about how to overcome challenges faced by early career researchers during times of geopolitical uncertainty. A further output of the summit is a white paper (in press) which will present global recommendations for each of the six phosphorus challenges, alongside Africa-focused sections that provide regionally tailored insights and guidance. By linking high-level international guidance with actionable strategies at regional, national, and local scales, it offers a practical framework for policy development, capacity-building, and sustainable phosphorus management.

uPcycle Stakeholder Workshop

Some key questions that were addressed by the group were: ‘what makes a good lake manager?’ and ‘What are the key challenges in lake management’. The workshop discussions emphasised the need for improved governance, stakeholder engagement, and long-term monitoring to meet SDG6 and biodiversity targets. Key actions included forming the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network through engaging with the Sustainable Phosphorus Summit that followed the workshop, fostering partnerships through the uPcycle Community of Practice, and advancing phosphorus reuse strategies to support sustainable agriculture.  

The pre-summit workshop fostered collaboration and aligned participants around a shared approach to sustainable lake management. This unified perspective then informed the summit discussions, with key insights and recommendations presented to delegates.

Participants also visited the Volta River Authority (VRA) offices and Lake Volta to explore issues including aquatic plant management, water quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. VRA highlighted the lake’s critical role in water, energy, and food security, and the growing threat posed by invasive floating weeds and harmful algal blooms, largely driven by nutrient pollution from agriculture, sewage, and industrial activities. VRA’s costly weed harvesting and composting efforts were showcased, alongside discussions with the uPcycle Component 2 team on potential collaborations, including app development for monitoring weeds and blooms.

Global Phosphorus Dashboard

Feedback about our Global Phosphorus Dashboard during the booth and poster sessions was highly positive, noting the dashboard’s intuitive interactivity, clear layout, breadth of data coverage, and inclusion of valuable contextual information such as transboundary catchments and land-use types. Delegates appreciated the metadata visibility and the cross-sector time-series plots.

Constructive feedback included requests for a search bar to locate lakes more easily, consistent colour schemes across nitrogen and phosphorus plots, and improved display of lake shapefiles. These suggestions have since been implemented before the public release, alongside visibility updates for lake features. Following SPS8, the uPcycle team aims to publish the dashboard openly by the end of the year and circulate it widely to those who expressed. Feedback from this event will also be incorporated into the upcoming manuscript on the dashboard’s development and applications.

The development of SPS8 has been well documented, and many of the activities and inclusivity principles can be replicated for similar or future events. ‘Towards a sustainable phosphorus network in Africa’ by Dr Grace Kangara (supported by other members of the organising committee) documents the roadmap for developing the summit and demonstrates the groundwork for the creation of the African Sustainable Phosphorus Network (ASPNet). Likewise, an upcoming article entitled ‘Insights from the 8th Sustainable Phosphorus Summit (SPS8), Africa) is being written by Erica Zaja (and supported by other members of the organising committee), and this article will detail the design of the summit, the implementation of inclusivity principles, and the key outcomes of the event. The next event, SPS9, will take place in Japan and will be led by Dr Kazuyo Matsubae from Tokyo University.

SPS8 united a diverse cohort of stakeholders around shared goals such as soil health, food security, and clean water. Delegates explored practical pathways like resource recovery, financial incentives, and circular economy solutions that align phosphorus sustainability with broader climate and development policy agendas. The summit was designed around inclusivity principles to promote inclusive participation from delegates from across industries and career stages, including delegates from marginalised groups. Financial support was offered to early career researchers and delegates from low-income nations.

The choice of summit location was also significant. Despite holding the majority of global phosphate rock reserves, much of Africa’s cultivated soil is deficient in phosphorus. The continent also faces economic barriers limiting fertiliser access for smallholder farmers and threatening food security amid population growth and climate change. While the 2006 Abuja Declaration called for major increases in fertiliser use, scaling up without proper safeguards risks worsening phosphorus runoff and water pollution. By convening SPS8 in Ghana, the summit promoted African leadership in shaping sustainable phosphorus strategies and strengthened collaboration across research, industry, and policy sectors. In particular, the formation of the new African Sustainable Phosphorus Network (ASPNet) SPS8 has created new opportunities for cross-sector innovation, capacity building, and global partnerships focused on both local and global sustainable phosphorus management solutions.