Development finance for biodiversity can originate from several sources. Official development finance (ODF), which includes official development assistance (ODA) and other official flows (OOF), is one of these sources. Development finance can be either bilateral [e.g. directly provided by a Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member to recipient countries] or multilateral (resources channelled through and by international financial institutions, multilateral or regional development banks, and United Nations institutions). Development finance can also include other sources: bilateral providers beyond the DAC, including South-South and triangular co-operation providers; and private flows mobilised by public interventions. Private philanthropy is also a key source of development finance. This chapter provides estimates of the landscape of biodiversity-related development finance from all these sources. For further information on how these estimates were produced, see Box 2.1 and Annex A.
Biodiversity and Development Finance 2015-2022
This report uses a variety of data sources to estimate development finance for biodiversity, namely the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) Creditor Reporting System (CRS), which collects data on official development assistance and other official flows, as well as drawing from the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) database. Countries and institutions reporting their official development finance signal flows to biodiversity-related activities using the biodiversity Rio marker, as well as through two Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) tags – SDG 14 and SDG 15.
For DAC members and countries and institutions reporting on the biodiversity marker, activities should be screened and marked as targeting the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as either a principal or significant objective; or not targeting the objective (the activity has no relation to the marker). Activities marked as “principal” must have biodiversity as fundamental in the design of, or the motivation for, the action. Activities marked “significant” have other primary objectives but have been formulated or adjusted to help meet biodiversity concerns.
The Rio Markers were designed to track the degree to which members are integrating and mainstreaming environmental considerations into their development co-operation activities, and thus apply to the entirety of an activity reported – not just the finance associated with the biodiversity-specific component of that activity. However, many DAC members apply a coefficient when reporting to the CBD on these flows, particularly to development finance that targets biodiversity as a “significant” objective [see (Casado-Asensio, Blaquier and Gualberti, 2024[1]) and Annex A for further information]. There is no agreed upon definition or common approach for this practice, but 40% is the most common coefficient applied to countries’ “significant” flows.
The analysis in this report reflects two approaches: 1) “biodiversity-related development finance” which reflects the full value of flows reported to the OECD; and 2) “biodiversity-specific development finance”, that applies a coefficient (40%) to flows corresponding to activities scoring as a “significant” (or secondary) objective of the biodiversity Rio marker and the totality (100%) of flows corresponding as “principal” (see Annex A for more information). The latter approach, therefore, provides a different scale but similar trends.
Overall biodiversity-related development finance from all sources increased by 136% over 2015-22, rising from USD 10.9 billion in 2015 to USD 16.8 billion in 2021 and USD 25.8 billion in 2022 (or a USD 15.5 billion annual average over the period). Figure 2.1 shows biodiversity-related development finance flows over 2015-22 (USD 15.5 billion on average), reflecting the full value of all flows reported to the OECD (i.e. 100% of the flows tagged as both principal and significant). In particular, contributions from public sources (DAC members and other bilateral providers and multilateral providers) increased by 114%. This increase was largely driven by a significant increase by multilateral institutions, representing a 123% jump from 2021 to 2022. Overall, multilateral institutions made up to 33% of the total international public flows on average over 2015-22 while DAC members provided 67% of the total over this period (and mostly driven by ODA). Flows from other bilateral providers, including South-South and triangular co-operation providers, made up an additional 0.1% of the total and gained importance after 2017, when many of these providers started reporting to the OECD.
Overall biodiversity-specific development finance from all sources increased by 112% over 2015-22, rising from USD 7.3 billion in 2015 to USD 11.1 billion in 2021 and USD 15.4 billion in 2022 (USD 9.4 billion annual average over the period; Figure 2.2). International public development finance for biodiversity increased by 79% – also explained by the significant increase in contributions by multilateral institutions from 2021 to 2022. Overall, contributions from DAC members made up 72% of the total public flows on average over 2015-22, with the remaining 28% coming from multilateral institutions. Flows from other bilateral providers, including South-South and triangular co-operation, made up an additional 0.2% of the total.
Under both methodologies, private sources of development finance for biodiversity have been increasing over time (Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2). Private philanthropic flows grew from USD 501 million in 2017 peaking at USD 932 million in 2021 and decreasing to USD 700 million in 2022. In turn, private finance flows mobilised by public interventions increased from USD 205 million in 2017, to USD 749 million in 2021 to reach USD 1.8 billion in 2022 and represented 72% of all private development finance for biodiversity in 2022. Figure 2.3 provides further details of the yearly breakdown of overall international public and private magnitudes, allowing to visualise and compare the two approaches, namely biodiversity-related (full values) and biodiversity-specific (estimates with coefficients).
Table 2.1 provides a breakdown of public biodiversity-related development finance from DAC members and multilateral institutions by type of flow and considering two approaches: biodiversity-related and biodiversity-specific. Biodiversity-related ODF reflects the full values of flows reported to the OECD while biodiversity-specific ODF applies coefficients to “significant” flows (see Annex A). The analysis shows that over 2015 to 2022, on average, DAC members’ contributions were distributed mainly through ODA, with OOF growing progressively over the decade. Conversely, multilateral institutions’ contributions were mostly provided through non-concessional flows.
2015-22, USD billion, full values
Notes: The figure shows the full value of all flows reported to the OECD. For details on what is covered under each category, see Annex A.
Source: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2024[2]), Creditor Reporting System (database), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/c and on mobilised private finance from OECD (2024[3]), http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/q, and Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (database) from TOSSD (2024[4]), https://www.tossd.org.
2015-22, USD billion, estimates with coefficients
Notes: The figure shows coefficients applied to the information reported to the OECD. For DAC members, this implies taking the full value of flows marked as principal against the Rio marker flows and using a 40% coefficient for flows marked as significant against the Rio marker as well as flows identified as contributing to Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15 (see Box 2.1). Multilateral institutions’ activities reflect the full value of their core (principal and “principal-like”) activities and apply a coefficient for activities considered as secondary (significant and “significant-like”). Information from private sources and non-DAC members and South-South providers reflect full values, hence they represent the same flows in Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2. For methodological information and details on data coverage and sources, see Annex A.
Sources: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2024[2]), Creditor Reporting System (database), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/c and on mobilised private finance from OECD (2024[3]), http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/q, and Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (database) from TOSSD (2024[4]), https://www.tossd.org.
2015-22, USD billion, biodiversity-related (full values) and biodiversity-specific (estimates with coefficients)
Notes: The biodiversity-related (blue) line shows the full value of all flows reported to the OECD. The biodiversity-specific (green) line shows coefficients applied to the information reported to the OECD.
Sources: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2024[2]), Creditor Reporting System (database), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/c and on mobilised private finance from OECD (2024[3]), http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/q, and Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (database) from TOSSD (2024[4]), https://www.tossd.org.
2015-22 annual average, bilateral and multilateral providers, USD million
Notes: The table provides information on development finance reported to the OECD, including ranges corresponding to two approaches: biodiversity-related official development finance (ODF; i.e. which considers full values) and biodiversity-specific ODF (i.e. applying coefficients). For DAC members, biodiversity-specific ODF implies taking the full value of principal Rio marked flows and using a 40% coefficient for significant biodiversity Rio marked and additional Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 14 and 15 and biodiversity-related keywords. Multilateral activities reflect the full value of their core (principal and “principal-like”) activities and apply a 40% coefficient for activities considered as secondary (significant and “significant-like”). Multilateral flows include principal, “principal-like”, significant and “significant-like” data from a variety of sources, including Rio marker data on biodiversity, purpose code data, SDGs 14 and 15 data, and data captured through keyword search. For more information on the methodology used to obtain and analyse multilateral institutions’ data, please consult Annex A.
Sources: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2024[2]), Creditor Reporting System (database), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/c and Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (database) from TOSSD (2024[4]), https://www.tossd.org.
References
[1] Casado-Asensio, J., D. Blaquier and G. Gualberti (2024), “Stock Take Report on Members’ Reporting Practices on Biodiversity-related Development Finance and Reporting against International Obligations”, DCD/DAC/ENV(2024)1/REV1/FINAL, https://one.oecd.org/document/DCD/DAC/ENV(2024)1/REV1/FINAL/en/pdf.
[2] OECD (2024), OECD DAC Creditor Reporting System Statistics, OECD.Stat, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/c.
[3] OECD (2024), “OECD Data Explorer”, Mobilised private finance for development, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/q.
[4] TOSSD (2024), Total Official Support for Sustainable Development, https://www.tossd.org/.