Stakeholders Advise Better Tracking of Biodiversity-Related Development Finance

Stakeholders at the on-going UN Biodiversity Conference in Cancun, Mexico has advised the global community to institute better tracking of biodiversity-related development finance.

Presented by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this workshop, moderated by Gabriela Blatter, Federal Office of Environment, Switzerland, engaged participants in discussing current methods of tracking biodiversity-related financing.

Markus Lehmann, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat, highlighted the challenges faced by parties in meeting the financial mobilization targets, noting that mainstreaming biodiversity into all sectors makes financial reporting difficult, and pointed to the additional challenge on reporting private assistance.

In the first session, on approaches to tracking biodiversity-related development finance, Galina Alova, OECD, presented the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Creditor Reporting System (CRS) used to monitor development finance targeting the three Rio Conventions. She described the Rio Markers, which are used to capture data to track financing of Rio Conventions’-related activities and goals. She reported bilateral biodiversity-related official development assistance (ODA) of US$8.7 billion in 2014-2015, with the top five contributors being Germany, the US, Japan, France and the EU. In a brief discussion, participants noted difficulties in ensuring data consistency due to the qualitative nature of the Rio Marker.

Luis Antonio Sánchez Perales, Ministry of Environment, Peru, spoke about his country’s approach to tracking biodiversity-related expenditure, stressing that “we must know how much goes to salaries and how much goes to trees and birds.” He presented an online platform where data on both public and private expenditure for biodiversity-related finance can be tracked, noting that an average of US$500 million was spent between 2010 and 2014 on waste management, waste water treatment and in situ conservation of potato breeds.

Bart Missinne, European Commission (EC), highlighted that the EU’s strategy for “biodiversity-proof” development cooperation must ensure that biodiversity is considered in: strategic environmental assessments, to identify and prevent undesired side effects of development projects on biodiversity, and through mitigation measures from development projects; and sector-wide planning, such as for health and infrastructure projects. He demonstrated how the EU has doubled total biodiversity-related ODA to developing countries by 116% against a baseline of average spending from 2006-2010.