The African Development Bank (AfDB) is joining forces with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to create an expert group on financing biodiversity in Africa. The initiative is part of the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) in Africa. This framework sets out an ambitious path for achieving the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.
Responding to the triple
crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution is an urgent
imperative. To this end, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15)
to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), held from 7 to
19 December 2022 in Canada, adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework (KMGBF) to protect nature and halt the loss of biodiversity
worldwide.
To turn words into action,
the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) are setting up an expert group on biodiversity financing,
which will provide African countries with knowledge and technical assistance to
mobilise more funding for biodiversity. It will also provide a platform for
decision-makers and development partners in Africa to establish links, share
knowledge, approaches, opportunities and solutions to mobilise biodiversity
finance for nature-friendly development pathways in Africa.
Filling an annual gap of
700 billion dollars
The African Biodiversity
Finance Expert Group was announced following the sub-regional workshop of Phase
III of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements Programme in Africa, the
Caribbean and the Pacific, organised by the United Nations Economic Commission
for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, from 25 to 28 July 2023.
"The AfDB recognises
the importance of biodiversity financing to complement development aid and
climate financing for African countries. The scale and scope of the impacts of
biodiversity loss in Africa require innovative financing mechanisms and
partnerships capable of rapidly mobilising resources from public, private and
multilateral institutions on a large scale," explains Vanessa Ushie, Acting
Director of the AfDB's African Natural Resource Management and Investment
Centre.
In its deployment, the
expert group on financing African biodiversity will focus on achieving Goal D
of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to ensure
adequate financial resources, capacity building, technical and scientific
cooperation, as well as access to and transfer of technologies, in order to
fully implement the framework. Goal D also aims to close the $700 billion
annual gap in biodiversity funding and to harmonise the financial flows of the
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the 2050 Biodiversity
Vision.
Fanta Mabo
