The 10th African Regional Dialogue on Financing Biodiversity, held from 3 to 5 April 2024 in Blantyre, Malawi, highlighted the urgent need to mobilise resources for biodiversity conservation in Africa. With an estimated need of nearly 950 billion dollars a year to restore and protect vital ecosystems, current funding for biodiversity remains largely insufficient, with only 121 billion dollars allocated annually.
Africa, home to some of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems, faces unprecedented challenges in protecting biodiversity. The first of these challenges is the availability of funding. “Globally, we have leveraged $400 million and released $1 billion in public funding for conservation. We are working with local communities, civil society, national parks, private entities and government organisations to secure the funding needed to achieve biodiversity goals on the ground,” explains Bruno Mweemba, technical advisor to the United Nations Development Programme’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP-BIOFIN). Each year, UNDP-BIOFIN organises regional dialogues around the world to exchange best practice and refine strategies, mechanisms and methodology.
In Malawi, for example, the BIOFIN programme has identified a need for 93 million dollars to meet national biodiversity targets for the period 2020-2025. Thanks to elaborate financing plans, the country has identified priority solutions to bridge this financial gap.
According to Michael Bizwick Usi, Malawi’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife, conservation comes at a huge cost. Money is needed to recruit human resources to protect biodiversity, eliminate invasive alien species, reduce poaching, prevent deforestation and maintain ecosystem services. He added that “increasing budget spending on biodiversity conservation is not only a moral imperative, but also an investment in our collective future. We must act quickly and decisively to prioritise biodiversity conservation in the national budget and demonstrate our country’s commitment to preserving the wealth of biodiversity for sustainable economic development”.
At the 10th African Regional Dialogue on Financing Biodiversity, participants explored various financing strategies, such as the involvement of the financial sector, positive incentives, impact investments and the reallocation of harmful subsidies. They also discussed payments for ecosystem services and digital financing solutions.
There are players, despite everything
Despite these challenges, a number of players and funding mechanisms are playing a crucial role in protecting biodiversity in Africa. Such is the case of UNDP-BIOFIN. Since its launch in 2012, this initiative has helped 41 countries to draw up biodiversity financing plans and mobilise resources for conservation. In 2024, 91 more countries will join this initiative, supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
As far as Africa is concerned, two recent initiatives in Uganda and Morocco highlight the opportunities available in this crucial area. On the one hand, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a €15 million project in Kampala, Uganda, on 10 April 2024. Funded by the European Union (EU), this five-year project aims to promote sustainable wood-based value chains by ensuring a sustainable supply of wood from planted forests, building processing capacity and improving access to affordable finance.
In addition, the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Agence nationale des eaux et forêts (ANEF) have signed a letter of intent to support Morocco’s 2020-2023 forest strategy and efforts to rebuild the Toubkal national park located 70 km south of Marrakech. This collaboration includes a 100 million euro loan from AFD to rebuild and develop the park.
The considerable contribution of governments
National governments play a major role in the flow of funding for nature conservation. According to the latest State of Finance for Nature report, published in November 2023 at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its partners, governments provided 82% (or 165 billion dollars) of the 200 billion dollars in funding mobilised for biodiversity in 2022.
And to improve the public sector’s contribution to financing biodiversity, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and UNEP took the opportunity of COP28 to set up an expert group on biodiversity financing. It will provide African countries with knowledge and technical assistance to mobilise more funding for biodiversity. The expert group will also provide a platform for policy-makers and development partners to establish links, share knowledge, approaches, opportunities and solutions to mobilise biodiversity finance for nature-friendly development pathways in Africa.
The private sector’s share remains insignificant
The private sector is lagging far behind the public sector in financing biodiversity in Africa. For the year 2022, this contribution was 18%, or 35 billion dollars.
Although climate change and biodiversity loss are closely linked, most companies are currently focusing on climate issues, with the majority of business leaders believing that biodiversity is less of a priority. According to the latest report from the Capgemini Research Institute, 16% of companies have already assessed the impact of their supply chain on biodiversity, while only 20% have assessed the impact of their operations.
The contribution of foundations
In this desert of private funding, foundations are playing a leading role. In June 2021, the Wyss Foundation, an organisation founded by the American philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss, allocated record funding of $108 million to African Parks, a South African nature conservation organisation that delegates the management of 15 national parks in Africa. The grant, spread over five years, is intended to support almost half the annual budgets of nine parks managed by African Parks in Angola, Benin, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
No more than three months later, African Parks will announce a pledge of $100 million in new funding for wildlife conservation in Africa. The funds will once again be allocated by a foundation. The foundation is the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation, administered by American billionaire Rob Walton, founder of retail giant Walmart, and his wife Melani Lowman-Walton.
The Bezos Earth Fund is also one of the leading foundations for funding biodiversity in Africa. In December 2021, the foundation of American billionaire Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, the global online retail giant, granted $40 million to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), an American non-governmental organisation (NGO) whose aim is to preserve nature around the world and particularly in Africa. The funding from the Bezos Earth Fund targets conservation actions carried out in partnership with governments, local communities and other nature conservation organisations in the Congo Basin region.
The Bezos Earth Fund is one of 9 private donors to have made a $5 billion commitment to protect and conserve 30% of the planet by 2030. Also known as “30×30”, this goal was debated on 30 September 2020, as part of the 75th period of regular sessions of the United Nations General Assembly. It aims to convert 30% of the planet into protected areas by 2030.
Boris Ngounou
