The 32 OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members marked an all-time high in 2022 in terms of development finance for biodiversity ever since the DAC started reporting biodiversity-related flows in its statistical framework back in 1998, according to new OECD analysis Biodiversity and Development Finance 2015-2022: Contributing to Target 19 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.  

The report shows that biodiversity-specific finance, which reflects an approach that many DAC members use to report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), increased from USD 6.6 billion in 2015 to USD 7.1 in 2022, marking an 8% increase over this time frame.

Nature underpins all economic activity and human well-being. Yet, biodiversity – the living component of nature – is declining at an unprecedented rate, with a heavy cost for developing countries, which have limited capacity to address its decline and are often disproportionately dependent on nature. Development finance has a key role to play in supporting partner countries to conserve and sustainably use their biodiversity. 

A new impulse was given to the biodiversity agenda with the agreement on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) by Parties of the CBD during the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in December 2022. The framework calls for USD 200 billion per year to be raised from all sources (public and private) (Target 19), including development finance, which is to increase by at least USD 20 billion per year by 2025, and at least USD 30 billion per year by 2030 (Target 19a).

“OECD donors are honouring their commitments, both through their direct biodiversity activities and by supporting the necessary shift through the multilateral system. This is a clear indication of the growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity for sustainable development – development finance is essential to support peoples’ basic needs and to tackle the triple planetary crisis, which also includes climate change and pollution,”  said OECD Development Co-operation Director, Pilar Garrido. 

DAC members’ official development finance for biodiversity
2015-2022, USD billion, estimates with coefficients

^{Note: ODF = official development finance. The figure shows coefficients applied to the information reported to the OECD. This implies taking the full value of flows with a principal objective being biodiversity and using a 40% coefficient for other significant biodiversity development finance flows.} 

^{Source: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2024), Creditor Reporting System (database).}

The analysis also finds that total development finance for biodiversity from a range of sources increased by 112% over 2015-22, rising from USD 7.3 billion in 2015 to USD 15.4 billion in 2022 (USD 9.4 billion annual average over the period). The increase in public biodiversity-specific development finance was primarily driven by multilateral institutions. In absolute terms, the latter represented 28% of the total flows on average over the period, while bilateral DAC donors accounted for 72%. Overall, these efforts include contributions from DAC members, but also from other bilateral and South-South co-operation providers, multilateral development banks, environmental funds, private philanthropies, and private finance mobilised through public finance, demonstrating that achieving the KMGBF requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. 

“Developed countries need to continue ramping up their efforts in line with the KMGBF” Ms. Garrido added.

“Together with multilateral actors, all donors should urgently discuss ways to increase the sources of finance for biodiversity beyond official development assistance, for instance by leveraging it to mobilise more private finance and explore new partnerships with private philanthropy and non-DAC donors.” 

For DAC donors, development finance flows for biodiversity represented 4% of total development finance on average over 2015-22. This share has remained relatively stable in a context where DAC member official development finance has grown. Further, despite the overall growth, the portion that targeted activities with biodiversity as a principal objective –as opposed to significant– decreased between 2015 and 2022 by 17% (from USD 4.6 billion to USD 3.8 billion, respectively). To ensure the long-term sustainability of the effects of biodiversity-related activities it will be crucial  to maintain and increase development finance for biodiversity as a core objective.

Download the Report: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/biodiversity-and-development-finance-2015-2022_d26526ad-en.html  

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