For Immediate Release
OECD report on international biodiversity finance shows progress but also raises concerns
London, September 18, 2024 - On September 18, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its annual report of the main trends in international biodiversity finance. The report measures contributions towards the finance target 19(a) of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which calls for developed countries to provide developing countries at least US$20 billion of international biodiversity finance per year by 2025.
The most recent data available for this report is from 2022. This report shows the level of international biodiversity finance increased to US$15.4 billion in 2022 from US$11.4 in 2021. While the US$20 billion target was commonly understood at the time of the GBF’s adoption in December 2022 as a doubling of the status quo, this report shows that the baseline was in fact much higher and that the US$20 billion target represents a 30% increase.
In response to the report, Campaign for Nature issues the following statement and an analysis of the report to highlight encouraging trends, areas of concern and recommendations for moving forward (provided as an appendix to this release):
Campaign for Nature’s Director, Brian O’Donnell said:
“This report shows that before COP15, international biodiversity finance was increasing significantly. That is welcome news.
Now, it is critical that historic and new donors arrive at COP16 with substantial new funding announcements for developing countries - primarily in public grants, not loans - to meet the agreed US$20 billion by 2025 target. This will be the first test to see if donors are moving from pledges to action to deliver on the ambitious goals and targets of the GBF.
Unprecedented biodiversity loss is an existential crisis. The most important areas that require urgent conservation to address this crisis are primarily located in the global south. Donors must prioritize development funding that has a principal purpose of biodiversity as it has a greater and more measurable impact than finance that has biodiversity as a secondary focus.
With just 15 months remaining to meet the at least $20 billion target, a ministerial initiative should be launched by donor governments to provide leadership on the issue and ensure urgent action. This initiative must provide more transparent and timely reporting as agreed by OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members in 2024. We believe they must commit to annual reporting shortly after the end of each year so that the US$20 billion can be measurable at the deadline of the end of 2025, rather than after the current two-year lag.
At COP16 we must see wealthy nations step up and do their part. The most important actions they can undertake are to increase finance to protect nature and reduce finance that is destroying nature. With biodiversity declining at rates unprecedented in human history, there is no time to wait.”
Martin Harper, CEO of BirdLife International said:
“Governments in developed countries can and should do more to support. The good news is that we know the money is there. The world now spends $2.6 trillion every year on subsidies to industries that destroy nature (such as fossil fuels, intensive agriculture, forestry and fisheries). Redirecting even a small portion of these subsidies can help create positive investments for biodiversity which will benefit our own prosperity.”
Oscar Soria, Co-CEO of Common said:
"The biodiversity finance gap is not just a crisis of ecosystems—it’s a crisis of equity. While $15.4 billion was mobilized for biodiversity in 2022, we’re still falling short of the $200 billion goal, leaving Indigenous communities and nature-rich regions underfunded and underprotected.
"The good news is that biodiversity funding hit $15.4 billion in 2022. The bad news is that dedicated funding for crucial projects like protected areas and restoration has declined since 2015. What’s more alarming is that most of the increase comes from loans, not grants, and mainstreamed funds now outweigh direct biodiversity support. With development budgets shrinking in key donor countries, the future of real biodiversity protection hangs in the balance."
"Private finance may have doubled for biodiversity, but the truth is stark: it’s a drop in the ocean. If we continue to rely on the private sector to fill the funding void without systemic change, the burden will fall hardest on those least responsible for environmental destruction—Indigenous peoples and local communities.
"Biodiversity is not a side note to development—it’s central to the survival of marginalized communities. As development finance for biodiversity is slowly taking shape, we must ensure it uplifts the rights of Indigenous peoples who are frontline defenders of ecosystems, not just token recipients of aid."
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Appendix – CfN Analysis and Recommendations in Light of the New OECD Report
Campaign for Nature (CfN) welcomes the new OECD report and believes that its findings provide some encouraging signs as well as some causes for concern. The following highlights several key takeaways from the report, as well as recommendations for governments as the world approaches COP16 and accelerates its efforts to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Encouraging news in the report:
CfN welcomes the significant increase in international biodiversity finance (IBF) from 2021 to 2022 as reported by the OECD.
CfN welcomes the greater clarity in the OECD report regarding what should count towards Target 19a: specifically, that counting 100% of “principal” biodiversity funding and 40% of “significant” funding is the appropriate way to measure progress toward the US$20 billion target.
CfN welcomes the report’s finding that public finance accounts for 84% of IBF in 2022, highlighting the central role that governments have played and will need to continue playing to fully meet the US$20 billion target by 2025.
Concerning trends highlighted in the report:
CfN is concerned that flows with a principal goal of biodiversity represent less than half of the total public flows of international biodiversity finance. This means that the majority of the projects that are counted towards the US$20 billion target do not have halting and reversing biodiversity loss as the primary objective. Despite an overall increase in biodiversity finance, the amount of funding for projects with biodiversity as the primary focus has decreased from US$4.6 billion in 2015 to US$3.8 billion in 2022.
To further shed light on this trend, CfN has reviewed hundreds of specific projects from 2022 in the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database, which is the source for the OECD’s annual reports. The project descriptions are often vague and not detailed enough to determine the portion of the project related to biodiversity. However, we have found a range of instances that are concerning, including 1) projects that do not seem to have a discernible connection to biodiversity[1], 2) projects that are focused on a different policy objective – like providing food aid related to the war in Ukraine[2], and 3) projects that are focused on climate or some other policy objective but are counted by donor countries as having 100% of the funding towards biodiversity[3].
CfN is concerned that the vast majority of the increase is in the form of loans. Grants are more appropriate for nature finance for a number of reasons:
Biodiversity is a global public good;
Nature is often not priced and there are limited opportunities to generate cash flows to service loans;
The Global North has an economic and historic obligation to fund biodiversity in the Global South since consumption in developed countries is responsible for 30% of the biodiversity loss in the developing world; and
Low-income developing countries are already burdened by unsustainable debt loads and biodiversity finance should not add to that debt burden.
CfN is concerned by the fact that 73% of all biodiversity-related funding has historically been provided by only five donors - Germany, France, EU Institutions, the United States and Japan - and that development budgets in those countries have been under intense pressure since 2022. For example, the development budget in Germany is set to be down 26% in 2025 compared to 2022 and France cut its development budget by 18% for 2025 and 13% in 2024.
CfN is concerned that these overall cuts will likely result in declines in international biodiversity funding by the 2025 deadline of Target 19(a) unless contributions from other countries and other sources make up the shortfalls from these top biodiversity funders.
Recommendations:
It is critical for countries to focus on dramatically increasing funding for projects with the primary purpose of halting and reversing biodiversity loss in order to achieve the goals of the GBF.
Governments and multilaterals should increase their international biodiversity finance through grants instead of loans.
The share of biodiversity funding supporting or going to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LCs) remains low, representing just 6% of total biodiversity-related bilateral finance from DAC members in 2022. CfN calls on DAC and non-DAC countries, multilaterals, philanthropists and private providers to increase direct financial contributions to IP&LCs.
CfN calls for more transparent, consistent and timely reporting as agreed by DAC members in 2024. We believe they must ensure:
Annual reporting shortly after the end of each calendar year rather than a two-year lag.
Countries and multilaterals ascribe specific percentages associated with measurable biodiversity outputs/outcomes on a project-level basis as a way to build on and further improve the OECD’s across-the-board methodology of counting 100% of principal flows and 40% of significant flows.
Disclosure by the OECD of the specific list of projects (and their details) that are included in the totals in its report, including for private finance mobilized by public finance (for which there is currently no project-level disclosure).
[1] The EU provided US$62 million across Latin America to fight organized crime; the UK provided US$10 million of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia to alleviate the impact of conflict and drought on the poorest Ethiopians; France provided US$11 million to Niger for higher education. (More examples are available.)
[2] The EU provided a number of grants for food relief and security as a result of the war in Ukraine, including US$16 million to Mozambique, US$11 million to East Africa, US$11 million to Tunisia and US$10 million to the Caribbean; Germany provided over US$1.2 billion of loans to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, with no specific definition of what portion, if any, of those proceeds will ultimately target biodiversity after they have been distributed by the IMF. (More examples are available.)
[3] Sweden provided US$36 million to Climate Investor Two, a fund that invests in a range of infrastructure projects, including water, wastewater and energy, with 100% of the funded amount counted as principal funding for both climate and biodiversity. (More examples are available.)