CARICOM to Discuss Financing For Biodiversity Projects at Regional Workshop

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) stakeholders will gather from Monday for a two-day workshop discussing the delivering on the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets related to financing.

(File Photo)The event brings together CARICOM senior technical focal points for the Convention on Biological Diversity, and government officials involved in financial or economic planning for the implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) commitments and environmental projects.

The workshop is being convened under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat, the hub of the Project for Capacity Building related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and the Cartagena Convention Secretariat, and the Caribbean Environment Programme.

The organisers said that national focal points and representatives of financing institutions will discuss current and emerging opportunities for financing the GBF. The workshop will also  examine regional capacity development options for financing including issues related to preparing national financing plans for implementing the MEAs and options covering climate, biodiversity, and blue finances.

According to the organisers, the participants will consider key variables isuch as the  interconnected nature of challenges, finance solutions that enable co-benefits across climate, biodiversity, and development agendas, that align with national priorities, and promote debt sustainability are critical.

The need to improve and enhance access to finance for small island developing states to include less burdensome application procedures, simplified approval procedures, direct access modalities for national and regional entities, as well as for sub-national and local organisations or entities, faster deployment of funding, efficient governance and reduced transaction costs and information asymmetries.

The potential for private sector financing taking into account the nature of private sector in SIDS and their debt dynamics will also be on the agenda.

The organisers said that the meeting comes at a time when serious attention is being placed on addressing the triple crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Post-2020 GBF) for protecting nature and halting biodiversity loss around the world that was adopted by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is an important tool to address this polycrisis.

“Significant resource mobilisation across the climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development agenda, in terms of “financing green” (increasing nature-positive flows), financing transitions that are aligned with pathways to maintaining global warming to below 1.5C, and “greening finance” (reducing nature-negative flows and phasing out harmful subsidies), will be central to the global response.”

They said as it it relates to possible solutions, UNEP,  in the lead up to the CBD COP 15, published an analysis of existing financing mechanisms and instruments in support of biodiversity conservation.

The analysis includes a review of some financial instruments and structures involving public-private partnerships or blended finance structures such as pooled investment vehicles, bonds, risk mitigation instruments (guarantees and insurance), high quality carbon credits, and biodiversity offsets and credits. These have the potential to scale and catalyse additional financing for biodiversity.

“It is imperative for countries (national focal points) and financing institutions, including the multilateral development banks, regional and national biodiversity funds, and others, to understand the principles and approaches underlying climate finance, nature finance and ocean finance to better articulate options for designing integrated models for financing to deal with inter-linked crises of climate, biodiversity, and ocean management,” the organizers said.